Fifteenth International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses

Abstract

The brick industry in Pakistan has an important economic role. Apart from its economic importance it also creates environmental concerns like smog. To understand this, a study was conducted in the outskirts of Lahore. According to IQAir 2020, Lahore is at the top ranking and its US AQI is 156. One of the major reasons for the polluted air is brick kilns emissions. Brick kiln emissions like SO2, CO, NOx, PM are causing a major problem by polluting the air quality. The comparative study of emissions from these technologies, i.e., conventional (Bull Trench), zig-zag, and briquette was carried out. It was observed that Conventional brick kilns are the major curse for the atmosphere, as emissions from these kilns are above the Punjab Environmental Quality Standards (PEQS), 2001 for all the criteria pollutants. Zig-zag is a new technology introduced in Pakistan, as it effectively reduces emissions as compared to conventional BTK. The government of Pakistan urges kiln owners to change their kiln technology to zig-zag. Briquette is better than conventional as it is the best way to manage agricultural solid waste which otherwise causepollution due to open burning. To minimize this situation several optimization techniques were considered including optimization of already working kilns, increasing the combustion efficiency of fuel, updating kilns to new and most efficient process design, and better chimney design to control hazardous pollutant load by air dispersion modeling.