Odour Management, Monitoring, Control & Process Emissions
2 July 2025, VIRTUAL
Odour Management, Monitoring, Control & Process Emissions
Wednesday 2nd July 2025, VIRTUAL
Format: Online
Times: 9:30 AM – 16:30 PM
Fee: £350 plus VAT for 1-person, (includes slides presented).
Course Overview
Odour is a subject that cuts across many of our industries: Waste & Sewage Sludge Anaerobic Digesters, Wastewater Treatment sites & Effluent Treatment Plants in the Food & Beverage sector. Waste Anaerobic Digestion facilities are more likely to experience challenges with adverse odour impacts owing to the heterogenous nature of materials processed and the time lag between recycling, collection and processing. And with many more facilities in planning & construction there is a need therefore to raise awareness and knowledge of best practice for odour management, monitoring and control.
This course is primarily aimed at operators, process optimisers, regulators and managers in the waste anaerobic digestion sector. However, it will also be of interest to any site experiencing odour challenges as at the heart of this course is understanding the root causes of odours, why, what, where and when produced; can the underlying cause be addressed and if not what is/are the appropriate abatement technique(s).
Course Aims
Odour may be encountered in all aspects of operation meaning that a rounded approach of knowledge is required to understand where, why and what odours are generated. Sources and types of odours vary across the process and during the day and seasonally. Effective techniques for monitoring, containing & abatement must therefore be robustly designed, operated and maintained. Odours that can be contained can be treated, but not necessarily at low cost and there will on occasion be fugitive emissions. We should also understand the global warming potential of process emissions and seek to measure and minimise.
This course is designed to help attendees understand and act upon the factors that influence odour generation.
Learning is delivered through a combination of lectures, case studies and worked examples.
Course Programme
- Odorous compounds generated from different facilities and abatement technology selection:
- Volatile sulphur and nitrogen compounds, volatile fatty acids, ketones & aldehydes
- Treatment technologies and which process to select for different odours, their concentration and flow rate
- Operation, maintenance, monitoring and troubleshooting
- Waste AD plant layout – what each part of the process should do. And where applicable how should or could odour be influenced (the reception hall through to off take of whole digestate).
- Major sources of odour at Water Company sites.
- Major sources of odour at Food & Drink manufacturing sites.
- Process emissions – where fugitive emissions occur which gases may be present that contribute towards global warming. How might we contain these, but what does containment mean from a health & safety perspective? The focus here will be primarily upon methane with reference to the Industrial Emissions Directive, Methane Action Plan, Methane from AD study.
- Operation & control anaerobic digesters – best practice
- The different phases of anaerobic digestion
- Digester (in)stability, a common cause of odour. Key tests and plant metrics including hydraulic retention time, volatile fatty acids and organic loading rate
- Common operational problems including foaming, inhibition, flaring, pressure relief valves operating (point source odour emissions)
Each section incorporates case studies and examples; as such optimising, troubleshooting, identifying root cause issues runs through the whole course.
Who should attend?
This course covers the fundamentals of the science of odour in anaerobic digestion whilst drawing upon an array of practical case studies. As such the course has wide appeal being highly relevant to operational teams, process scientists and managers looking to upskill and optimise, regulators, technology providers seeking to understand where products fit in the market, researchers and innovators wishing to understand the latest challenges facing the industries and anyone interested in understanding the market and investment drivers.
Trainer Profile
Matthew Smyth BSc, MRes, MBA, MCIWEM CSci CWEM
Director, Aqua Environment Solutions Limited
E. matthew.smyth@aquaenvironment.co.uk
Matt has worked with numerous clients in the organic waste AD sector and provided trainings to both The Environment Agency & Northern Ireland Environment Agency on ‘good operational practice for anaerobic digestion’, odour management, monitoring & control. He also provides training on digester process optimisation, health & safety and emissions from facilities.
