Monitoring VOC's

A great deal of industrial solvents and solvent based coatings give rise to emissions that are potentially harmful to the environment. Tracking solvent losses to air and implementing solvent minimisation strategies can help companies make significant cost savings in reducing waste costs and costs of raw materials. Tracking and reducing solvent consumption has also means that companies can fulfil legal obligations under LAPC without needing to install expensive pollution abatement equipment.

• When investigating this, the company should compile and maintain a solvent inventory, through:



• Obtaining details from solvent supplier(s) concernin solvent purchases and advice on how to work out solvent losses.



• Obtaining details of paint purchases, including the solvent content of paints from paint suppliers. (Appendix.1 gives the densities of some common industrial solvents).



• Tracking and recording the amount of waste paint tins / drums generated over a representative period such as 1 month.



• Measure on a weekly basis the amount of energy used and quantity of material (solvent and paint) and compare this to work undertaken such as:



• Components coated.



• Area for painting.



• Amount of spray guns cleaned.

Under LAPC the local council will require information concerning the weight in kilograms of solvent consumed and disposed of. To convert solvent volumes to eights their density must be calculated. The table below gives densities of common solvents. The equation below calculates the weight of solvent from its density and Volume: