Paint spray booths possess high concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOC) and other hazardous air pollutants (HAP) that must be collected or mitigated before the supply air is released to the environment or recirculated. The Services maintain numerous paint spray booths at almost every installation. This translates into a very large problem of control and air pollution compliance.

This project demonstrated and validated the ability of the recirculation/partitioning concept to reduce exhaust volumes from spray booths by 60 percent or more while keeping the booth environment within safety codes. The demonstration was conducted at the U.S. Marine Corps Logistic Center, Barstow, CA. Concurrent with the spray booth demonstration were research and demonstration studies using selected pollution prevention process modification options at the Logistic Center in Albany, GA. These studies were evaluated during production operations to assess the consequences of the process change and to insure the compatibility of selected options with process operations and materials.

The Program was an applications engineering and development activity which was designed to validate new and innovative non-polluting technology and process changes for manufacturing and maintenance operations. Initial emissions characterization studies of paint spray booth and surface cleaning emissions were conducted to develop baseline data for the selected process modification concepts. The critical program milestones following completion of system procurement and installation were demonstration, testing and evaluation, and reporting.

All equipment installations were completed and debugged. The system started operating in recirculation in June 1996. Initial results indicate that all objectives were achieved. All on-site work was completed. This project was completed in FY 1996.

The project would enable Department of Defense facilities to continue to accomplish their missions without discharge of toxic and hazardous pollutants to the atmosphere. It would develop and demonstrate technologies that permit significant reductions in pollution control technology capital and operating costs. The resulting technologies also would reduce pollution discharges by private industry and help them continue to operate while reducing their negative impact on the environment.