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General Introduction

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Biological Odour Treatment

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science ((BRIEFSENVIRONMENTAL))

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Abstract

Odour is a serious complaint associated with waste air emissions that creates nuisance. Odour affects human beings in several ways. Strong, offensive smells, if they are frequent and or persistent, interfere with the enjoyment of life. Foul odour may not cause direct damage to health but the toxic stimulants of odour may cause respiratory problems. Very strong odours result in nasal irritation and activation of symptoms in individuals with breathing problems or asthma; they can even prove fatal if people are exposed above a certain limit. Eye irritation has been also reported. Secondary effects may be nausea, fatigue, insomnia and headache and dizziness. Loss of property value near odour-causing industries and odourous environments is partly a result of offensive odour. Its treatment process ranges from physical and chemical to biological means. Conventional air pollution control technologies can treat a wide variety of pollutants at higher concentrations; however, for treating waste air with low pollutant concentrations these approaches become economically prohibitive. Biological methods for the removal of odours and volatile organic compounds from waste gases are cost-effective technologies when low concentrations are to be dealt with. Odour generation and composition, health effects of total reduced sulphur (TRS) compounds and advantages of biological treatment methods for odour removal are discussed in this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. C-103 Thapar Centre for Industrial R&D, Patiala, India

    Pratima Bajpai

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  1. Pratima Bajpai
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Bajpai, P. (2014). General Introduction. In: Biological Odour Treatment. SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07539-6_1

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