By reducing air pollution and improving indoor air quality we can promote human health, and even saves lives. Together with customers, VTT develops cleantech solutions, supports reliable emission measurements and provides an air cleaning R&D service platform.
Key facts: clean air solutions
Clean air solutions help promote human health by reducing emissions and improving indoor air quality.
VTT has decades of experience in research related to emission measurements and their quality assurance.
Our air cleaning R&D service platform focuses on clean, energy-efficient and silent products and production environments.
Clean air is one of the most important necessities to people. Ambient air pollution is the greatest environmental risk to health, causing more than 3 million premature deaths worldwide every year. Economic losses caused by premature deaths and increased illnesses are significant. Clean air solutions help reduce emissions and improve indoor air quality.
Industrial production processes, including the energy sector, account for a considerable share of air pollution in Europe. Reliable and traceable emission measurements play a key role in investment decisions for abatements systems that reduce emissions.
Reliable emission measurements are needed for decision-making
VTT has decades of experience working with research related to emission measurements and their quality assurance. Our clients and partners are both national and international.
In Finland our role is to support the decision-making process of, for instance, national ministries. We write national guidelines and instructions on implementing new European standards, directives and practices. These guidelines are used by national authorities, industries, emission measurement laboratories and analyser manufacturers. We take an active role in the preparation of national and international policies and the standardisation of emission control.
As an impartial research institute, we have organised several intercomparison measurements for both Finnish and foreign emission measurement teams since the 1980s. With these campaigns, emission measurement teams are able to detect if they need corrective actions in their processes to improve their QA.
Ambient air pollution causes more than 3 million premature deaths worldwide.
We have carried out several international capacity building projects that have helped strengthen emission measurement capacities in countries such as India, Uruguay and Chile. Thanks to cooperation with VTT, our partner laboratory in Uruguay, LATU is now able to perform emission measurement campaigns themselves. In Finland, our Handbook for emission measurements publication is used widely by different stakeholders. We focus on strengthening personnel capacities, not only on technological solutions.
New innovations for emission measurement
We have profound expertise on the characterisation of emissions from different sources, such as power plants, industrial processes, ship engines and other point sources. For this, we use versatile state of the art technologies.
Analyser manufacturers can develop new innovations, such as emission measurement equipment, using our research platform and facilities to perform operational tests. Testing includes linearity, interferences and short and long-term stability. After laboratory tests, these innovations can be studied by comparing them with standardised, state-of-the-art technologies during field tests. Manufacturers can use the results of these studies in their product development processes.
R&D for novel emission measurement techniques is one of our activities, given examples such as Hg-analyser and rotating Pitot-tube.
Clean, energy-efficient products for indoor air
We offer a unique air cleaning R&D service platform. Our focus is on clean, energy-efficient and silent products and production environments.
Our competence is based on airborne contamination control, advanced air filtration technologies and air flow analysis, as well as fluid dynamics simulation (CFD) and measurement. Together with our customers we develop novel and energy-efficient cleantech products, services and production processes for global markets.
Our areas of expertise are the control of airborne contamination in products and processes, industrial ventilation systems, exposure control and occupational hygiene, performance evaluations of air cleaners or purifiers, filters, filter media, filter material and filter development, and development of advanced measurement systems.
Publications related to clean air solutions
- Ohjeistuksia päästömittausten laadunvarmistukseen Suomessa (in Finnish)
- Emission froma a fast-pyrolysis bio-oil fired boiler: Comparison of health-related characteristics of emissions from bio-oil, fossil oil and wood
- SO2 emission measurement with the European standard reference method, EN 14791, and alternative methods - observations from laboratory and field studies
- Gas risks in freight container handling
