Eliminating Containment and Re-Entrainment Problems for Hydrocarbon Research

Indoor air quality (IAQ) has become a popular subject in the HPI over the past few years, especially in laboratory environments where research is conducted at workstations that generate toxic and odoriferous atmospheric fumes. While expanding their Technical Center East facility at the companies' headquarters in Dublin, Ohio, Ashland Specialty Chemical Co. and Ashland Distribution Co. have examined the IAQ issue. Many ventilation/exhaust options for workstations during the planning phase were incorporated and evaluated. As a result, benefits included maximizing employee protection, preventing exhaust re-entrainment, eliminating odoriferous exhaust, and lowering maintenance and energy costs for laboratory workstation fume-hood exhaust systems.

Ashland's new Technical Center East building, dedicated in October 1998, represented the first major expansion of the technical facility since the early 1970s, when the two companies (then known as Ashland Chemical Co.) established their headquarters in Dublin. The new building, with a total of 115,000 sq ft, is mainly dedicated to customer support, product development and research for the composites market. There are about 100 dedicated laboratory workstations in the facility, with technologically advanced exhaust fume hoods and controllers that automatically manage airflow, reducing it when the workstations are not being used.