Immission control and technical air pollution control

Clean air is a basic human need that has to be preserved and protected at all cost. This principle forms the basis for controlling air pollution in Germany. Against the backdrop of the rising growth in population in urban areas and the high volume of traffic due to this as well as industry and households, significant amounts of pollutants are still being released into the air despite constantly-improving technologies to reduce emissions. This situation is particularly problematic in cities because air exchange is restricted due to the density and height of buildings. Accordingly, ensuring clean air is a challenge, especially in urban areas. Despite their high social relevance, air quality and air pollution control are complex and multi-faceted topics which have only been the subject of limited technical and systematic research.

In the past, the focus of research concerned with air pollution control was on decreasing emissions and on passive or administrative measures to reduce immissions. The possibilities of these methods are currently exhausted but the concentration of air pollutants in cities is expected to rise in the future. Consequently, innovative concepts and new approaches are urgently needed to control air pollution with technical methods and to reduce immissions.

Therefore, our experts in combustion and environmental protection develop and conduct research on various systems and concepts for technical air pollution and immission control. This results in a broad spectrum of research tasks:

• Development of and research into innovative technical concepts to reduce immissions and control air pollution
• Development of concepts to measure air quality
• Investigation and evaluation of the effectiveness of technical air pollution control measures (preventive, primary and secondary)
• Simulation of the spread of pollutants in urban areas

With regard to air pollution control, we have the expertise and practical experience required to implement state-of-the-art measuring equipment in order to determine air quality in accordance with the 39th  German Federal Immission Control Act (BImSchV) and perform the appropriate digital evaluation and analysis procedures. We also have outstanding skills in the use of software to simulate the spread of pollutants from various sources (combustion plants, road traffic, commercial enterprises) in urban areas. Thanks to our wide-ranging expertise and technical know-how, we develop and implement pilot projects and systems both on a small and large scale.