Air Emissions

Manufacturing several of Millipore’s products requires the use of solvents, which leads to the generation of environmental emissions mainly in the form of atmospheric and wastewater releases. To minimize these emissions, we use solvent capture and recovery systems at our facilities in Bedford, Massachusetts, Jaffrey, New Hampshire, Kankakee, Illinois, Cork, Ireland, and Molsheim, France.

Process Flow Diagram of membrane casting machine "IC2" in Cork, Ireland

Utilizing these systems allows us to stay well below the relevant regulations governing emissions, such as U.S. EPA Title 5 air permitting limits and The Solvents Directive and German TA Luft standards in Europe. This decreases environmental impacts, which benefits employees and local communities, while also reducing cost by enabling the re-use of solvents.

DCM (Methylene Chloride) Recovery Unit in Jaffrey, NH

For example, at our Jaffrey, New Hampshire site, Millipore produces Millidisk, and Prostak Microfiltration and Ultrafiltration devices, and the related processes have the potential to emit to the air more than 30,000 pounds of the solvent dichloromethane (DCM) per year. Millipore spent more than $2.5 million to install state-of-the-art air pollution control equipment to minimize these emissions and recapture the solvent for future use.

These pollution control devices use activated carbon to remove DCM from process exhaust stream. The solvent is then removed from the carbon through steam stripping. Approximately 75-80% of the solvent is reclaimed in this way, and we are able to re-use about 20-25%. The remainder is recycled externally. See diagram of the DCM cycle below.

For information about our solvent recovery efforts see our page on Local Efforts in Cork, Ireland.

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