Advanced Air Quality Control Project

General considerations for Operation

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General considerations for Operation

Abstract

Texas Car body Repairs is a company based in the USA that is a vehicle body repair shop. As part of the work it deals in, the company is involved in interior lining of paint on vehicles. The company seeks to set up this unit but has to seek authority first for this from the government and federal authorities based on the Texas State Law and EPA laws. This therefore is an application for an air permit for operation. The plant is expected to use 10 gallons of interior liner coating material and 2 gallons of solvent or vehicle lining application (Code, 2009). Two vehicles will be applied interior liners per day. The unit will work for five hours per day and four days per week. Vehicle lining curing will be done for curing the interior liners of two vehicles per day while working for five hour per day and four days per week.

Discussion

According to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the considerations for registration state that a spray operation that uses less than half pint of coatings and solvents per hour can be considered for registration (Godish, Davis & Fu, 2014). The document goes further to say that, spray operations that use less than two gallons of coatings and solvents per week could also be considered for registration. The company in question here has met all these considerations since the amount of paint it uses per hour is less than the recommended amount of paint by the law.

The law also stipulates that a company should have a method of dealing with excess paint. It states that a company should take care of all overspray emissions and which must be vented through a filter system. All paint booths, spray areas and preparation area overspray filters should have a particulate control efficiency of at least 90%. The design meets this criterion since the vehicles will be placed in in spray booths which are opened at one end of the booth for fresh air to flow in (makeup air). The exhaust air will flow through an exhaust chamber at the other end of the vehicle.

The unit is also expected to maintain good housekeeping practices that ensure the painting booths are always clean. In that respect all paint spills are taken care of immediately to ensure they do not flow to the environment and destroy living organisms such as plants. According to the law, the equipment also needs to be maintained in proper and good working conditions and according to manufacturer’s instructions. The method of maintenance would also be carefully maintained to ensure that the environment remains clean and safe for all human beings. The painting booths would also be kept clean at all times. This would involve safe disposal of waste coatings, solvents and some in instances vehicles brought into the unit may have engine oil, brake fluid, gear oil and transmission fluid. The company has put systems in place to ensure that safe disposal of these fluids is done without affecting the environment. These fluids would first be put in covered containers before safe disposal to avoid spilling. No firings will also be allowed for the waste coatings, solvents or oils will take place in the site which the law highly prohibits, where disposal method is by burning.

According to the TCEQ regulations, the unit will also ensure that there are no visible emissions leaving the company. The company will therefore put in place air and liquid systems that take up waste paint that vaporises into the air and liquid paint. Exhaust air will flow through an exhaust chamber and method used in spraying will ensure efficiency in the operation that means reduced paint wastage (Von Schneidemesser et al., 2015). The unit is also built in such a way that paint jobs that require coats of more than nine square feet can be efficiently done by totally enclosing the filtered spray booth with an air intake area of less than 100 square feet. The spraying will also be equipped with a fan that has a face velocity of at least 100 feet per minute and a flow capacity of at least 10,000 cubic feet per minute. This to ensure that pollution of the paint to the environment is minimized as much is practically possible. For all spray painting jobs of less than nine square feet, the law requires that the painting be done an area ventilating system be operational during spraying and the exhaust air vented to the atmosphere though a stack or the air be recirculate back into the booth through a carbon adsorption system. The carbon in these adsorption systems should be replaced at intervals especially during maintenance of the system to minimize solvent emissions which are hazardous to the environment (Von Schneidemesser et al., 2015).

Systems with high efficiency transfer of the coat will also be used in the booths. The equipment to be used is expected to be used such that at high volume low pressure spray guns. These methods ensure, a high transfer rate efficiency during the painting operation so that the incidences of air pollution is reduced by fast transfer rate of the paint to the vehicles.

The maintenance of equipment used in spraying through cleaning will be done in such a way that, they are totally enclosed during their actual cleaning rinsing and draining. The solvents used in cleaning should be such that they are stored in an enclosed reservoir which is always covered except when being refilled with more fresh solvents.

The company will also endeavour to maintain certain records as expected by the law. These records will be well maintained for a period of 24 months and will be made available upon request to any official body tasked with air pollution control or government body. A material safety data sheet (MSDS) will show how paint and solvents were used for the previous 24 months. It will also show the manufacturers of the paint. The company will also keep records of coating and solvents purchased each month. Records on maintenance of the air filters will also be kept to so as to ensure that air pollution is kept at bay and that the filters work appropriately. Records of the United States Environmental Protection Agency will also be kept and regularly update, in line with the law. With this in place, it is expected that the company will be given an air permit so that construction may proceed at the site. We endeavour to stick by these laws and regulations so as to efficiently do away with air pollution and keep the environment cleaner and safer.

References

Code, T. A. (2009). Title 30 Environmental Quality. Part I Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Godish, T., Davis, W. T., & Fu, J. S. (2014). Air quality. CRC Press.

Von Schneidemesser, E., Monks, P. S., Allan, J. D., Bruhwiler, L., Forster, P., Fowler, D., ... & Sindelarova, K. (2015). Chemistry and the linkages between air quality and climate change. Chemical Reviews, 115(10), 3856-3897.