TROMBIA

Our Green Deal

We at Trombia Tech are dedicated to contributing to the global-wide environment goals in a range of fields.

By innovating and developing the Trombia® technology, we have enabled street cleaning to dramatically decrease waste of water and energy during the process. 

The Trombia sweeper enhances urban lives by increasing air quality with its removal capabilities for particulate matter. The accurate and effective street cleaning cleans drain water from streets and protects the harmful chemicals and ingredients of the street and industrial dust from draining into waters. By replacing currently used compact sweepers and suction sweeper with products utilizing the Trombia® technology, cities and industrial operators are able to reduce CO2 emissions and noise pollution of their sweeping fleets. 

Clean air

Particulate matter, PM2.5 and PM10, is the common indicator for air pollution that flows in our breathing air. The major components of PM are sulfate, nitrates, ammonia, sodium chloride, black carbon, mineral dust and water. Research has found a direct link between particulate matter and cardiovascular illnesses such as lung cancer, and this link has been proven with significant increase in mortality. 

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Street dust and industrial silica dust are a significant source of PM in the outdoor air. Throughout the 2010s several studies were carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of street cleaning in decreasing particulate matter in the urban air.

 

A major repeating conclusion was that the use of traditional suction sweepers alone in street cleaning is not sufficient for having a longer term impact, but instead the suction sweepers were recommended to be supported with pressure washer vehicles following them. 

 

European Association for Municipal Equipment manufacturers, EUNited, has raised awareness on the quality of the sweeper vehicles and technologies with its PM Test certificate that has since become the benchmark for all street sweeper qualifications around the world. To access the list of certified sweepers click here. 

Even more significant measure for the quality of a sweeping technology is its true capability to remove the finest PM2.5 dust particles off the surface. The EUnited PM Test certification does not reveal the dust removal rate of specific sweepers, but studies throughout the last three decades have concluded the highest level of sweeper vehicles to reach dust removal rate of 90% – 98%, whereas widely used mechanical sweepers have been found to help with the PM dust challenge with only a removal rate of 10-35%. With suction sweepers, there is a significant variation between sweeper technology models, but in general, the required high level of dust removal can only be reached with street scrubbers equipped with heavy high power suction equipment – suction power taking over 100 kw of energy. 

 

Trombia Sweeper technology is certified up to the highest level of EUnited PM2.5 Test. Even more, we carried out an independent test with identical test setting as the EUnited PM Test to define publically available information on the PM2.5 and PM10 dust removal rate. In co-operation with Metropolia University of Applied Sciences in 2017, the removal rate of Trombia sweeper was found to be between 95-96.5% in several repetitive tests. This means Trombia sweeper is delivering a sweeping performance second to none in the global street cleaning market. 

 

Reduction of particulate matter originating from street and industrial dust, can be achieved by utilizing the speed and performance of Trombia sweepers for mechanical and fine dust sweeping. In areas where PM is found accumulating constantly, the communities can use pressure washing equipment to flush the remaining 5% of the PM particles.

Save Water

The increasing understanding of the health impacts of the street and silica dust have led street cleaning operations to adopt water as the method for dust control during the cleaning operations. This has led to suction sweepers and street scrubbers being equipped with water containers up to 8000 l and water sprinkling setups using over 2000 l – 3000 l of waters for flushing the streets. What is forgotten is that the water on the road surface will only make Particulate matter removal less efficient and the water usage has now reached levels that can seriously be questioned. 

Dust control of the Trombia sweeping technology is based on a revolutionary Trombia® Cyclone technology which uses no water on the road surface. As a result, Trombia removes particulate matter more effectively and saves water over 95% compared to currently widely used mechanical, suction or regenerative sweeping methods.

Cut CO2 Emissions

As governments, cities and industrial organizations have understood the importance of effective street cleaning in decreasing particulate matter pollution, the road maintenance fleets have started to expanded dramatically. The combination of mechanical and suction sweepers and dust control and pressure washing trucks are typically fueled with diesel fuel due to enormous power requirements. 

Trombia® technology is enabling us to stop this development and clean our areas smarter, better and faster, with marginal CO2 emissions.

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PM-removing street cleaning fleet

 

While designed to be better for the urban air, the above diesel-powered fleet has become enormously inefficient and harmful for our planet. 

In the traditional suction or regenerative sweeping based fleets, all of the above units play a critical role. For example in the Nordic European countries where traction sanding is significant for winter roads, these fleets are commonly seen in the spring time.

First, the streets are watered for dust control with a dedicated watering truck. Second, a mechanical sweeper vehicle or broom attachment is used to remove coarse debris and sand in order to make the street ready for the suction or regenerative sweeper vehicle. After mechanical sweeping the actual PM removing suction sweeping is carried out. Based on the research, if this step is preferred to be effective for PM levels, the suction sweeper needs to be equipped with high performance suction engines over 70-100 kW. Last, the final part of the cleaning is done with a pressure washer unit.

This fleet design has also lead sweeping manufacturers to develop truck-mounted street sweepers with high-pressure washing systems integrated. These scrubbers are typically equipped with over 200kw of engine power jointly for drive and suction. Altogether, this fleet then grinds the street area clean with a snail speed of 1 km/h. 

The compact sweepers are equipped with only 60-80 cm wide suction inlets, and the street scrubbers PM removal width is also much narrower than the actual cleaning truck. As a conclusion the fleet only achieves a cleaning rate of 600 – 2000 m2 every hour, but consumes a significant amount of energy = fuel.

Trombia® technology cuts CO2 emissions dramatically by performing as a mechanical sweeper and as a highly efficient PM removing sweeper. As the Trombia sweeper does not require a dust control truck in front of the fleet, three heavy units of the fleet have been turned into one in a Trombia fleet.

Trombia Sweeping fleet for sustainable PM level improvement

 

Even more important is the replacement of the high-performance suction sweeper, as the suction truck is the most energy-consuming unit of the fleet. Trombia sweeping technology uses less than 15% of the energy consumed by the heavy-duty suction sweepers. This is linked directly to the CO2 emissions of the sweeping operations.

Protect Our Waters

The most recent and concluding research on methods to decrease stormwater and drain water pollution was published by the University of Florida in 2019. The series of studies carried out between 2007-2019 have been clear with defining the most cost-effective methods to decrease the amount of pollutants draining into the waters from the modern cities and infrastructure. In brief, the pollutant chemicals – the PM dust – is most cost-efficient to remove from the street surface with effective street cleaning programs rather than any other methods, such as catch basin cleaning. 

 

Trombia® sweeping technology contributes to this challenge by offering the most environment-frienly, cost-efficient and effective particulate matter cleaning method for cities to adopt.

Healthier Worksites – Control Silica 

Respirable crystalline silica is created in a range of industrial operations, such as sawing, drilling, and other heavy equipment work at worksites. Silica dust is directly linked with severe amount of respiratory illnesses. Worksite employees spend an excessive amount of time in the dusty conditions and become vulnerable for the health damage caused by silica. 

Governments and workplace regulators have set maximum levels of silica dust exposure allowed, both in the North America and in the European Union. Trombia Sweeper is designed to help worksite management to combat the silica dust problem effectively. 

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In January 2018, the European Commission issued a revision of the Carcinogens and Mutagens at Work Directive (2017/2398/EC). This directive, enforced now by member states, sets a maximum legal limit of worksite silica dust exposure in an 8-hour work shift to 0.1 mg / m3. The EU directive also binds you to keep pulp and wood dust levels below 2 mg / m3.

 

In the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration set the standard even lower, to 0.05 mg / m3.  Worksites where workers are exposed to over 0.05 mg / m3 are hence breaching the well-known Silica rule.

 

Trombia® technology is designed to help worksites to get below these levels with the permanent removal of the silica dust from the site. While OSHA’s standard for housekeeping recommends worksites to water the surfaces instead of removing the dust, the permanent dust-controlled removal is more effective method for the worksite to handle the challenge. Watering the dusty surface while sweeping will only make the problem come back soon after it has dried up.

 

Trombia removes dust from a fully dry surface. The technology uses marginal amount of dust suppression water inside the hopper to support the Trombia® Cyclone operations. Most importantly, Trombia removes up to 96% of the fine dust from the surface, seals it in a container, and disposes it to a disposal site of your choice.

Better Urban Living – Minimized noise pollution

Street sweeping fleets are know to cause a significant noise pollution around the urban areas. We at Trombia are dedicated to decrease the urban noise pollution generated by the suction engines and equipment inside the sweeping vehicles. As the Trombia sweeping technology is developed to remove dust and debris with less power, less energy and less engines, we have also managed to decrease the noise levels of the sweeping process. With Trombia attachment you will reach the noise level that your wheel loader generates – significantly less than a suction truck.

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