08 Oct Emission sources and amounts and natural processes for mitigation

Air Quality Management

DQ1 Emission sources and amounts and natural processes for mitigation

 

This topic integrates previous course reading and viewings with this week’s content and should be particularly helpful in working on your assignment due at the end of this week.

 

(1) Take one of the six criteria pollutants and discuss the major sources of emissions for that pollutant.  Note the general amounts contributed by these sources.  That is, it is important to focus on major sources of emissions rather than minor sources of emissions.

 

How do the natural sources of these pollutants compare to anthropogenic sources of these pollutants?

 

What has occurred in the past when these pollutants (such as CO, NO2, SO2, and particulates) are emitted into our atmosphere?

 

Please add to the discussions by reading what your classmates have discussed and then do one of the following: add some new facts, provide a different perspective, bring greater depth or more connections, or gently correct.

 

(2) Alternatively, you can also discuss the specific air pollutants from anthropogenic sources such as coal-fired power plants and cars run by combustion engines.

 

(3) In your course reading this week, we discussed that “People, in their everyday lives, have many personal sources of air pollution: automobiles, home furnaces, water heaters, fireplaces, and barbecues. A family of four may produce 1,700–1,800 kg/year of gases and 40–70 kg/year of particulate matter (Boubel et al. 1994, 77). Although these quantities may seem miniscule compared to those of a power plant, they must be multiplied by all the families (or individuals) in the country – some 80,000,000 households.”

 

Using 40 kg/year of particulate matters per American household, how many kg of particulates is produced yearly by Americans?

 

Where are those sources of particulate production by the average American?

 

What occurs to those particulates in our atmosphere?

 

Using 40kg/year of particulate matter production per family, how much particulates is that per day?

 

If you produced that in a room consisting of 3 meters cube, how many μg/m3 of particulates would that be?

 

How does that compare to NAAQS?

 

DQ2 Various ways of sampling & analyzing air

 

Here are some questions to help you think about and learn from each other about sampling and analysis:

 

(A) We covered a number of sampling devices including:

 

Summa canister

 

Sampling pumps

 

Sorbent tubes

 

Vapor badge

 

Please discuss how these sampling devices work.  We will end the week with a table summarizing various devices on the context in which they should be used.

 

(B) We also covered the basics for some analytical methods for determining the amount of pollutants in each sample.  The analytical methods include, gravimetric analysis, atomic absorption spectrometry, Chemiluminesence,  gas chromatography, mass spectrometry and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy.  Have you used one of these analytical techniques before?  If so, provide some details on what you have done and integrate with course reading concepts this week.  Share your thoughts and knowledge on one of these analytical techniques and what it can measure (the latter should logically follow from the former).

 

Why is there no one analytical technique to analyze for all pollutants?

 

DQ3 Control technologies

 

We have read about control technologies for both mobile and stationary sources.  Please take one of the technologies below and share your knowledge about how the technology works, what air pollutants it controls, and where that technology would most likely be used.

 

Some of those control technologies that you read about and you will be assessed on are:

 

Electrostatic precipitator

 

Filters

 

Cyclone

 

Wet scrubbers

 

Bag house filters

 

Condensers

 

Afterburner

 

Oxidizing catalytic converter

 

Reducing catalytic converter