Numerical Simulation of the Relationship between the Width of Destressed Zone and Blasthole Depth

Overstress in the surrounding rock of the roadway is a key reason that causes failures of deep roadways. Destressing blasting is one of the promising techniques that could improve the supporting quality. If the depth of the pressure relief blast hole is too shallow, the surrounding rock of the roadway will be broken or even collapsed. If the pressure relief blast hole is too deep, the pressure relief area will be located in the deep part of the surrounding rock of the roadway, which cannot achieve the purpose of releasing the stress in the shallow part of the surrounding rock and cause waste of the blast hole. The width or range of the pressure relief area should just fall in the high stress area of the surrounding rock of the roadway, so the pressure relief blast hole should have a reasonable depth. In order to quantitatively describe the relationship between borehole depth and the width of the stress relief zone, numerical simulations were carried out in ANSYS according to different borehole depths. The results show that the optimal destressing effect is achieved when borehole depth is 4 m. Peak stress of and is significantly reduced by 30.51% and 49.07% after blasting. Meanwhile, the high-stress area shifts about 4.8 m from the roadside to the depth of surrounding rock, thus a 3.8 m wide stress relief zone is formed around the roadside, thus, the aim of quantizing the effects of destress blasting is achieved.

Differentiated emission control strategy based on comprehensive evaluation of multi-media pollution:Case of mercury emission control

In order to comprehensively evaluate the environmental impact of multi-media mercury pollution under differentiated emission control strategies in China,a literature review and case studies were carried out.Increased human exposure to methylmercury was assessed through the dietary intake of residents in areas surrounding a typical coal-fired power plant and a zinc(Zn)smelter,located either on acid soil with paddy growth in southern China,or on alkaline soil with wheat growth in northern China.Combined with knowledge on speciated mercury in flue gas and the fate of mercury in the wastewater or solid waste of the typical emitters applying different air pollution control devices,a simplified model was developed by estimating the incremental daily intake of methylmercury from both local and global pollution.Results indicated that air pollution control for coal-fired power plants and Zn smelters can greatly reduce health risks from mercury pollution,mainly through a reduction in global methylmercury exposure,but could unfortunately induce local methylmercury exposure by transferring more mercury from flue gas to wastewater or solid waste,then contaminating surrounding soil,and thus increasing dietary intake via crops.Therefore,tightening air emission control is conducive to reducing the comprehensive health risk,while the environmental equity between local and global pollution control should be fully considered.Rice in the south tends to have higher bioconcentration factors than wheat in the north,implying the great importance of strengthening local pollution control in the south,especially for Zn smelters with higher contribution to local pollution.

A review of atmospheric mercury emissions, pollution and control in China

作为一种全球污染物质，水银在环境和人的健康上有重要影响。在中国的大气的水银排出物，污染和控制的当前的国家包括地在这份报纸被考察。与人为的水银排出物的大约 500800 t，中国贡献 25%40% 到全球水银排出物。在中国的主导的水银排放来源是煤燃烧，熔炼的非铁的金属，水泥生产和钢生产。从在中国的生来的来源的水银排出物等价于人为的水银排出物。在中国的大气的水银集中是乘诺思半球的背景水平的大约 210。在在中国的遥远的区域的水银免职流动通常在 1050 g 的范围吗？

Mercury flows in large-scale gold production and implications for Hg pollution control

Large-scale gold production（LSGP） is one of the five convention-related atmospheric mercury（Hg） emission sources in the Minamata Convention on Mercury. However, field experiments on Hg flows of the whole process of LSGP are limited. To identify the atmospheric Hg emission points and understand Hg emission characteristics of LSGP, Hg flows in two gold smelters were studied. Overall atmospheric Hg emissions accounted for 10%–17% of total Hg outputs and the Hg emission factors for all processes were 7.6–9.6 kg/ton. There were three dominant atmospheric Hg emission points in the studied gold smelters, including the exhaust gas of the roasting process, exhaust gas from the environmental fog collection stack and exhaust gas from the converter of the refining process. Atmospheric Hg emissions from the roasting process only accounted for 16%–29% of total emissions and the rest were emitted from the refining process. The overall Hg speciation profile（gaseous elemental Hg/gaseous oxidized Hg/particulate-bound Hg） for LSGP was 34.1/57.1/8.8. The dominant Hg output byproducts included waste acid, sulfuric acid and cyanide leaching residue. Total Hg outputs from these three byproducts were 80% in smelter A and 84% in smelter B. Our study indicated that previous atmospheric Hg emissions from large-scale gold production might have been overestimated.Hg emission control in LSGP is not especially urgent in China compared to other significant emission sources（e.g., cement plants）. Instead, LSGP is a potential Hg release source due to the high Hg output proportions to acid and sludge.

Mercury mass flow in iron and steel production process and its implications for mercury emission control

The iron and steel production process is one of the predominant anthropogenic sources of atmospheric mercury emissions worldwide. In this study, field tests were conducted to study mercury emission characteristics and mass flows at two iron and steel plants in China. It was found that low-sulfur flue gas from sintering machines could contribute up to41% of the total atmospheric mercury emissions, and desulfurization devices could remarkably help reduce the emissions. Coal gas burning accounted for 17%–49% of the total mercury emissions, and therefore the mercury control of coal gas burning, specifically for the power plant burning coal gas to generate electricity, was significantly important. The emissions from limestone and dolomite production and electric furnaces can contribute29.3% and 4.2% of the total mercury emissions from iron and steel production. More attention should be paid to mercury emissions from these two processes. Blast furnace dust accounted for 27%–36% of the total mercury output for the whole iron and steel production process. The recycling of blast furnace dust could greatly increase the atmospheric mercury emissions and should not be conducted. The mercury emission factors for the coke oven,sintering machine and blast furnace were 0.039–0.047 g Hg/ton steel, and for the electric furnace it was 0.021 g Hg/ton steel. The predominant emission species was oxidized mercury, accounting for 59%–73% of total mercury emissions to air.

Improved atmospheric mercury simulation using updated gas-particle partition and organic aerosol concentrations

The gaseous or particulate forms of divalent mercury(HgⅡ) significantly impact the spatial distribution of atmospheric mercury concentration and deposition flux(FLX). In the new nested-grid GEOS-Chem model, we try to modify the HgⅡ gas-particle partitioning relationship with synchronous and hourly observations at four sites in China. Observations of gaseous oxidized Hg(GOM), particulate-bound Hg(PBM), and PM 2.5 were used to derive an empirical gas-particle partitioning coefficient as a function of temperature( T) and organic aerosol(OA) concentrations under different relative humidity(RH). Results showed that with increasing RH, the dominant process of HgⅡ gas-particle partitioning changed from physical adsorption to chemical desorption. And the dominant factor of HgⅡ gas-particle partitioning changed from T to OA concentrations. We thus improved the simulated OA concentration field by introducing intermediate-volatility and semi-volatile organic compounds(I/SVOCs) emission inventory into the model framework and refining the volatile distributions of I/SVOCs according to new filed tests in the recent literatures. Finally, normalized mean biases(NMBs) of monthly gaseous element mercury(GEM), GOM, PBM, WFLX were reduced from-33%–29%, 95%–300%, 64%–261%, 117%–122% to-13%–0%,-20%–80%,-31%–50%,-17%–23%. The improved model explains 69%–98% of the observed atmospheric Hg decrease during 2013–2020 and can serve as a useful tool to evaluate the effectiveness of the Minamata Convention on Mercury.