BioAir Odour Control Project in Qatar Shows Immediate Results

Ashghal, the government-run public works authority in Doha, Qatar was looking for a better way to handle odours at their Pumping Station 11, which services the Najma Al Mansoora region and is located beside the Holiday Villa hotel in Doha.

Operating more than 190 pumping stations to handle sewage to the city’s wastewater treatment facilities, Ashghal began searching for a new, environmentally-friendly odour treatment solution. That’s when the agency was contacted by BioAir® Solutions (USA), a leading United States provider of biological odour and emission control solutions for wastewater treatment plants, which had recently established a presence in the Middle East region.

BioAir helped Ashghal assess the odour situation at the pumping station, establish suitable design criteria, and develop a solution using the company’s cutting edge EcoFilter® biotrickling filter technology. Installed was a high-performance EcoFilter EF52 biological odour control system which is capable of handling H2S concentrations in excess of 750 ppmv while achieving removal efficiencies of greater than 99.5 percent. In addition, the BioAir EcoFilter functions continuously without the need to remove or replace the media. The EcoFilter technology uses bacteria to remove odours, and is a sustainable, “green”, environmentally friendly process that requires no chemicals or activated carbon.

Ashghal was interested to see how well the EcoFilter technology would operate in the peak summer heat, which reaches ambient temperatures of up to 131°F. Upon delivery and installation, the EcoFilter unit eliminated the odours almost immediately and demonstrated its efficiency regardless of the ambient air temperature. The system performance has continuously exceeded the 99 percent H2S removal guarantee that BioAir Solutions specified when the unit was installed.

The EcoFilter system successfully resolved Ashghal’s odour situation at Pumping Station 11 in very short order. In addition, BioAir was able to demonstrate that the technology is a low-operating-cost system that requires very little maintenance and which works as promised to eliminate odours.