Air Pollution

Institute of Engineering (IOE)

Pulchowk
Introduction
• In 1307, King Edward I banned burning coal in lime kilns in London
• In 1952, a week of intense fog and smoke resulted in over 4,000 excess
deaths that were directly attributed to the pollution
• In the United States, the most alarming episode occurred during a 4-day
period in 1948 in Donora, Pennsylvania, when 20 deaths and almost 6,000
illnesses were linked to air pollution.
• Industrial smog or sulfurous smog (high concentration of sulfur oxide and
particulate matter)
• emissions of carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen, and various volatile
organic compounds that swirl around in the atmosphere reacting with each
other and with sunlight to form photochemical smog is main cause of air
pollution in major cities
• Long-term, low-concentration Vs Short-term, high-concentration exposure
Overview of Emissions
• primary pollutants (nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons) Vs.
secondary pollutants (Ozone)
• Sources of primary pollutants: combustion, evaporation, or
grinding and abrasion
CH4 + 2O2 → CO2 + 2H2O
CH4 + O2 → mostly(CO2 + 2H2O) + traces of [CO + (HC)]
Air (N2 + O2) + Heat → Thermal NOx
Fuel (H, C, S, N, Pb, Hg, ash) + Air (N2 + O2) → Emissions (CO2, H2O,
CO, NOx, SOx, Pb, Hg, particulates) + ash
Overview of Emissions
• Secondary pollutants
• VOCs + NOx + Sunlight → Photochemical smog (O3 + etc.)
• ground-level ozone Vs stratospheric ozone
• Source categorization: mobile sources (transportation) Vs
stationary sources (industrial processes and miscellaneous
sources)
• mobile sources are responsible for most of the CO and almost
half of the NOx, whereas stationary sources are responsible for
most of the SOx, Hg, particulates, and VOCs, along with a bit
more than half of the NOx
The Clean Air Act
• passage of the Air Pollution Control Act of 1955 to address nation’s
air pollution
• Clean Air Act Amendments of 1963, 1966, 1970, 1977, and 1990, all
of which are sometimes lumped together and referred to as simply
the Clean Air Act (CAA)
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) was required to
establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), and
states were required to submit State Implementation Plans (SIPs)
that would show how they would meet those standards
• the Act required New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) to be
established that would limit emissions from certain specific types of
industrial plants and from motor vehicles
Air Quality and Emission Standards
• NAAQS vs NSPS
• NAAQs
• Primary-set at levels that will protect public health and include an
“adequate margin of safety,”
• Secondary-established to protect public welfare (e.g., structures, crops,
animals, fabrics, etc.)
Air Quality Index (AQI)
• used to report to the public an overall assessment of a given
day’s air quality
• integrates air quality data for five of the criteria pollutants into a
single number that represents the worst daily air quality in an
urban area
• An AQI value of 100 indicates that at least one pollutant has just
reached its ambient air quality standard on that day
• An index of 500 indicates an imminent and substantial
endangerment to public health
Air Quality Index (AQI)
• Good (0–50): No health impacts are expected in this range.
• Moderate (51–100): Unusually sensitive people should consider reducing
prolonged or heavy exertion.
• Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups (101–150): Active children and adults, and
people with lung disease, such as asthma, should reduce prolonged or
heavy exertion outdoors. The general public is not likely to be affected.
• Unhealthy (151–200): Everyone may begin to experience health effects.
Members of sensitive groups may experience more serious health effects.
• Very Unhealthy (201–300): Air quality in this range triggers a health alert,
meaning everyone may experience more serious health effects.
• Hazardous (301–500): Air quality in this range triggers health warnings of
emergency conditions. The entire population is more likely to be affected.
Criteria pollutants
• identified as contributors to both sulfurous and photochemical
smog problems

Express 0.25 ppm of NO2 as a

concentration by mass at 25 oC
and 1 atm pressure.
Toxic Air Pollutants
• pollutants that “are known to be, or may reasonably be anticipated to
be, carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, neurotoxic, which cause
reproductive dysfunction, or which are acutely or chronically toxic.
• There are literally hundreds of such chemicals, including 189
compounds that are listed in the 1990 Amendments
• Even before the 1990 Amendments were passed, the EPA had
initiated National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants
(NESHAP) under Section 112 of the Act, but by 1988, only asbestos,
benzene, beryllium, coke-oven emissions, inorganic arsenic,
mercury, radionuclides, and vinyl chloride were regulated
Particulate Matter: Introduction
➢ Particulates are a natural component of the atmosphere. They include the following;
➢ Condensation products from natural combustion (forest fires, volcanoes, etc.)
➢ Products of reaction of trace gases (ammonium chloride, sulphate and nitrate salts)
➢ Material dispersed from the earth’s surface (salt spray from oceans and mineral dust from continental land mass)
➢ Also particulate material introduced by humans, which can predominate in urban atmosphere, with the major sources
being combustion and incineration processes.
➢ Measurements may be useful for characterization of the particulate content of an atmospheric sample:
➢ A preliminary measurement would be the total particulate concentration. This is a measurement of the weight of
solid extracted from a fixed volume of the atmosphere by filtration or by other methods
➢ The second consideration is the analytical composition. For metals, this is often simply elemental analysis. The
analytical task can be more difficult than for aquatic samples since the inorganic component of the particulate
material may be highly insoluble, particularly if present as silicate salts.
➢ The particle size distribution is often also determined
➢ Why do you think particle size is important?
➢ Transport
➢ Differences in Physiological Properties
➢ Distribution of Chemical Species
➢ Effect on Atmospheric Reactions
Filter Based Monitoring of Particulate Matter
➢ Filter-based PM monitors
➢ Collecting particulate matter (PM) on a filter for analysis is the oldest and best understood method of measuring
particle pollution
➢ How filter measurements work
➢ PM is expressed as a mass concentration; that is, the mass of particles in a given volume of air, usually in
micrograms (millionths of a gram) per cubic meter of air (μg/m3)
➢ All expressions of PM mass concentration refer back to filter-based PM measurements, and PM monitors that aren’t
filter-based usually apply a correction factor
➢ How measurements are calculated
➢ to determine mass concentrations, a known volume of air is pumped through a filter of a known mass for a specific
time period, after which point the filter is weighed
➢ The mass concentration mass equals the mass of filter after sampling minus the mass of the filter before sampling
divided by the total volume of air
➢ This process is referred to ’gravimetric analysis.’
➢ What are particles made of?
➢ Further analysis of collected PM may be conducted to identify the makeup of the PM, a process called ‘speciation.’
Usually, the filter is dissolved and the remaining material analyzed with X-ray spectrometry or mass spectrometry
High-volume Sampler
• Used to collect total suspended particle (TSP) samples
• The high volume air sampler draws a large known volume of air through a pre-
weighed filter for 24 hours
• The sampler filter traps the TSP particles as air passes through the instrument
• After sampling, the filter is re-weighed and the difference in filter weight is the
collected particulate matter mass. Dividing the mass by the volume of air sampled
gives the concentration of TSP
• If required, the particulate matter retained on the filter is analysed to determine
the concentration of pollutants, such as lead or other metals. Metals can also be
monitored continuously
• The design of the air inlet means that a TSP high volume air sampler is unlikely to
collect airborne particles with diameters greater than 100 micrometres (µm) in
diameter
• This type of sampling usually takes place at 6-day intervals due to the need to
manually change the filters
High-volume Sampler
• Particles smaller than 10µm are especially concerning as these particles can enter
the human respiratory system and penetrate deeply into the lungs, causing
adverse health effects
• Motor vehicles and other combustion processes that burn fossil fuels such as
power stations, industrial processes and domestic heaters, generate PM10
• Dust storms and smoke particles from bushfires can also be another source of
PM10 missions
• Instruments used to measure PM10 are either a high or low volume air sampler
• The PM10 high or low volume air sampler is similar to that described above for TSP,
except that the air sample passes through a size-selective inlet
• The inlet removes particles larger than 10µm by using their greater inertia to trap
them on a greased plate, while smaller particles pass through the instrument onto
the pre-weighed filter
• Measuring the volume of air sampled and weighing the filters before and after
sampling determines the concentration of PM 10 particles in the air
• Like the TSP sampler described above, the particles retained on the filter can be
analysed to determine the concentration of other pollutants
High-volume Sampler
➢ Air sample drawn through a large-diameter membrane filter (20-25 cm),
typically at 75 m3/h
➢ The choice of filer is based on:
➢ Retention of correct particle size range
➢ Absence of trace impurities in the filter
➢ Compatibility with the subsequent analytical procedure (total combustion
vs dissolution)
➢ Cellulose filters should be used for metals and inorganic anions, and glass-fibre
filters for organics.
Respirable Sampler
➢ Respirable dust is smaller than 10-micron in size with a mass median diameter
of 4 microns
➢ Pollutant such as silica dust is produced when drilling, blasting, or cutting silica-
containing rock which when entered into the lung makes breating difficult and
may cause death
➢ Any air sampler, which is designed to collect the respirable fraction of dust
(respirable dust), contains two essential components: a separator of the coarse
dust, and a pre- weighed filter to collect the respirable fraction
➢ Two standard techniques are currently available:
➢ air sampling using of miniature cyclones for dust separation
➢ use of cyclones or foam pre-filters to separate large particles
➢ Dust sampling is at the higher rate of approximately 2 l/min through a 25 mm
filter.
➢ Filters are of glass fiber if simply a total particulate weight is required.
➢ Other filter material may be used for elemental analyses, the choice depending
on the subsequent analytical procedure.
Stationary Sources
• Non-transportation fossil-fuel combustion is responsible for 90
percent of the SOx and almost half of the NOx and PM10 emitted
in the United States
• most of the power plant emissions result from the combustion of
coal ( other processes such as evaporation of volatile organic
substances, grinding, and forest fires)
• to reduce fossil fuel consumption:
(1) increase the conversion efficiency from fuel to energy,
(2) increase the efficiency with which energy is used, and
(3) substitute other, less polluting, energy sources for fossil fuels
Stationary Sources (Contd…)
• Precombustion controls
• Combustion controls
• Post combustion controls
Stationary Sources (Contd…)
• Coal-Fired Power Plants
Stationary Sources (Contd…)
• Coal-Fired Power Plants
• Precombustion Controls
• Fluidized-Bed Combustion (FBC)
• Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle
• IGCC with Carbon Sequestration
• Controlling NOx Emissions
• Flue Gas Desulfurization (Scrubbers)
Stationary Sources (Contd…)

IGCC
Particulate Control
• Cyclone Collectors
• Cut diameter – the particle size for which the
efficiency is 50%
Particulate Control
• Electrostatic Precipitators
Particulate Control
• Filters
• Deep bed filter – relatively clean gas and low volumes
• Baghouses – industrial gas with high volumes
Particulate Control
• Combined Heat and Power Systems
Indoor Air Quality
• health effects are the result of exposure, not emissions
• 2 percent reduction in emissions of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) would
be equivalent to eliminating all the coal fired power plants in the United States
• combustion and space heating and cooling can produce elevated levels of carbon
monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, and other respirable particulates
• Cigarette smoke emits carbon monoxide, benzene, acrolein, and other
aldehydes, and particulates, as well as about 4,000 other chemicals
• Some photocopying machines emit ozone
• Building materials such as particleboard, plywood, urea-formaldehyde foam
insulation, various adhesives, and other building materials emit formaldehyde
• Chipped and peeling paint containing lead becomes airborne toxic dust
• A long list of VOCs are emitted from household cleaning products, paints,
carpeting, and different chemicals we use in our homes
Indoor Air Quality
• asbestos used for fireproofing and insulation
• radon gas that seeps out of the soil and collects in houses
• biological pollutants such as bacteria, moulds, animal dander,
dust mites, pollen, and viruses
• sick-building syndrome (Sneezing or coughing; watery eyes;
headaches; eye, nose, and throat irritation; dry or itchy skin;
nausea and dizziness; fatigue; difficulty in concentrating; and
general malaise)
Categories of Indoor Air Pollution
• Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS)
• Smoke exhaled + side-stream smoke = ETS or second hand smoke
• Involuntary or passive smoking (breathing air with (ETS)
• ETS causes lung cancer in adult non-smokers and has serious effects
on the respiratory system of children
• listed as a Group A, known human carcinogen
• Smokers have nearly 10 times as much of the carcinogen, benzene, in
their blood as non-smokers, and a pregnant smoker undoubtedly
passes benzene to her developing foetus.
Categories of Indoor Air Pollution
• Asbetos
• used to be a common building material found in structural fireproofing,
heating-system insulation, floor and ceiling tiles, and roofing felts and
shingles
• used in consumer products such as fireplace gloves, ironing board
covers, and certain hair dryers
• physically damaged in some way during their use, microscopic fibers
may be dispersed into the indoor air environment
• Inhalation of these fibers can lead to a number of life-threatening
diseases, including asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma.
• one of the first substances categorized as a hazardous air pollutant
under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act
Categories of Indoor Air Pollution
• Radon
• Radon gas and its radioactive daughters are known carcinogens
(second to smoking in lung cancer)
• a radioactive gas that is part of a natural decay chain beginning with
uranium and ending with lead
• Radon gas formed in pore spaces between mineral grains in soil can
work its way to the surface where it can enter buildings through the
floor.
• Radon itself is inert, but its short-lived decay products—polonium, lead,
and bismuth—are chemically active and easily become attached to
inhaled particles that can lodge in the lungs
Categories of Indoor Air Pollution
Infiltration, Ventilation and Air Quality
• the amount of air available to dilute pollutants is an important
indicator of likely contaminant concentrations
• Indoor air can be ex-changed with outdoor air by any
combination of three mechanisms:
• Infiltration
• natural ventilation, and
• forced ventilation
An Indoor Air Quality Model
An Indoor Air Quality Model
Air Quality Standard of Nepal