Abstract
Malodour from raw rubber processing activities is a nuisance to the people who are residing around its vicinity. There are many sources of malodour from this industry. The gases emitted from water scrubber system are identified as one of the major contributors. The objective of this study is to characterize and understand the characteristics of odour emitted from water scrubber system by means of dynamic olfactometry. Three commercial rubber factories were chosen to be part of this study. The assessment covered mainly at dryers as point source of sampling, where the odorous compounds were transported from the dryer into the scrubber system, to control odour concentration.
From three identified factories, odour concentration value ranged from 22,938 ou/m3 to 275,985 ou/m3 for Scrubber 1 & 2. As for odour removal efficiency, the corresponding factories showed the efficiency ranged between 48 % to 92 %. Several layers of filter were integrated, however no significant effects were observed. This may be due to the variations of material quality, sampling technique, type of scrubber and the maintenance of the abatement systems. Thus, proper design of scrubber may contribute in enhancing the odour removal. However, regulation of odour in Malaysia is yet to be developed and further investigations need to be carried out as there are limited numbers of papers written about the odour problems in the country.
