Elevated Mercury in Ambient Air and Soils Impacts of Historical Air Emissions (1897-1991) from a Chlor-Alkali Plant (CAP)

Mercury contamination was found to be widespread in soils at a property in Upstate New York. Historical site use suggested that the mercury did not result from prior industrial use of the property. Soil contamination may have resulted from atmospheric deposition of mercury released from properties in close proximity to the contaminated property. The purpose of this forensics investigation was to examine to what extent atmospheric deposition of elemental mercury may have influenced mercury levels found in surficial soils on the contaminated property and further to identify the source(s) of the mercury. Work efforts included an examination of historical records available for a chlor-alkali plant (CAP) upwind of the contaminated property to establish historical use and disposal practices for elemental mercury. Mercury emissions test data from the Upstate New York chlor-alkali facility were modeled (USEPA ISC3) as a means of estimating impacts on ambient air and soils vicinal to the facility. Mercury emissions from the facility were modeled as both a point source and volume source. For example, at a location 305 meters to the east and 30 meters to the north of the modeled source centerline elemental mercury concentrations in ambient air were estimated at 270 ng/m3 (average results based upon 5 years of meteorological data). This value is contrasted to a background concentration of 1.6 ng/m3 (USEPA Report to Congress 1997). As a result of the modeling data in combination with findings related to mercury use and disposal practices at the NY CAP documented from the records review, it was concluded that emissions from the CAP facility during the period of operation (1897-1991) most likely accounted for the concentrations of elemental mercury found in surficial soils at properties situated downwind of the CAP. These findings were further corroborated by information available in the open literature for CAPs world-wide.

Develop an Air Emission Inventory for Potential Point Sources in Northern Key Economic Zone and Simulate Its Impacts on Air Quality in Hanoi City,Vietnam

The Northern Key Economic region of Vietnam is a dynamic economic center that is an important economic locomotive of the North and the whole of Vietnam.In this area,large industrial parks are concentrated,attracting many large FDI projects.Key industries:cement production,cars-motorcycles,electronics,...Economic development entails environmental problems.The industrial sector has been identified as the number one driving force driving the growth of Hanoi city and neighboring provinces.Therefore,industrial development is one of the main causes of environmental pollution.In addition,the growth rate of industry in neighboring provinces significantly affects the air quality in Hanoi city.Some factories in Vinh Phuc,Hung Yen,Bac Ninh and Hai Duong provinces have large sources of gas emissions,potentially affecting air quality around Hanoi city.Monitoring results show that air pollution in Hanoi city is mainly caused by dust pollution,especially PM2.5 superfine dust.This is a very harmful dust to health;it is necessary to determine the cause and control solution.Therefore,the objectives of this study are:(1)inventory of potential emissions sources for industrial activities in the northern key economic region around Hanoi;(2)Simulate air spread by AERMOD model to get an overall picture of the industrial impact of surrounding provinces in Hanoi city;(3)Propose solutions to manage air quality for the city in the coming time.Simulation results for pollutants with the highest concentration of NOx for 1 hour,24 hours and the average of the year is 7.94;1.02;0.222(μg/m3);of CO for 1 hour and 8 hours are 27.616;8.89(μg/m3);of SO2 for 1 hour,24 hours and the average of the year is 4.005;0.288;0.038(μg/m3);of PM2.5 for 1 hour,24 hours and the average of the year is 0.32;0.023;0.003(μg/m3);of PM10 in 1 hour,24 hours and year average are 1.03;0.074;0.098(μg/m3).

Bi-level optimization model applications in managing air emissions from ships:A review

Ship air emissions are recognized as one of the key concerns of the maritime industry.Competent authorities have issued various regulations to manage air emissions from ships.Although the authorities are policy makers,the effectiveness of policies is up to the shipping industry who operates the vessels and terminals to fulfill maritime transportation works.Given this characteristic,bi-level optimization model has been widely adopted in studies that optimize policy design or evaluate its effectiveness.The framework of a typical bi-level optimization model for ship emission management problem is given to show the basic structure of similar issues.A series of applications of bi-level optimization model in managing ship emissions is reviewed,including cases of Energy Efficiency Design Index,Emissions Control Area,Market Based Measure,Carbon Intensity Indicator,and Vessel Speed Reduction Incentive Program.We hope this paper can enlighten scholars interested in this area and provide help for them.

The impact of China’s high-speed rail investment on regional economy and air pollution emissions

The high-speed rail(HSR)network in China has experienced rapid development since the 2000s.In 2016,the State Council of the People’s Republic of China issued a revised version of the“Mid-and Long-term Railway Network Plan”,detailing the expansion of the railway network and construction of an HSR system.In the future,the HSR construction efforts in China will further increase,which is considered to impact regional development and air pollutant emissions.Therefore,in this paper,we apply a transportation network-multiregional computable general equilibrium(CGE)model to estimate the dynamic effects of HSR projects on economic growth,regional disparities,and air pollutant emissions in China.The results indicate that HSR system improvement could generate a positive economic impact but could also increase emissions.The gross domestic product(GDP)growth per unit investment cost stimulated by HSR investment is found to be the largest in eastern China but the smallest in the northwest regions.Conversely,HSR investment in Northwest China contributes to a substantial reduction in regional disparities in terms of the GDP per capita.In regard to air pollution emissions,HSR construction in South-Central China results in the largest increase in CO_(2) and NO_(X) emissions,while for CO,SO_(2),and fine particulate matter(PM_(2.5))emissions,the largest increase occurs due to HSR construction in Northwest China.At the regional level,the provinces with large changes in accessibility also experience large changes in their air pollutant emissions.

Association discovery and outlier detection of air pollution emissions from industrial enterprises driven by big data

Air pollution is a major issue related to national economy and people's livelihood.At present,the researches on air pollution mostly focus on the pollutant emissions in a specific industry or region as a whole,and is a lack of attention to enterprise pollutant emissions from the micro level.Limited by the amount and time granularity of data from enterprises,enterprise pollutant emissions are stll understudied.Driven by big data of air pollution emissions of industrial enterprises monitored in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei,the data mining of enterprises pollution emissions is carried out in the paper,including the association analysis between different features based on grey association,the association mining between different data based on association rule and the outlier detection based on clustering.The results show that:(1)The industries affecting NOx and SO2 mainly are electric power,heat production and supply industry,metal smelting and processing industries in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei;(2)These districts nearby Hengshui and Shijiazhuang city in Hebei province form strong association rules;(3)The industrial enterprises in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei are divided into six clusters,of which three categories belong to outliers with excessive emissions of total vOCs,PM and NH3 respectively.

CFD Study of NO_x Emissions in a Model Commercial Aircraft Engine Combustor

Air worthiness requirements of the aircraft engine emission bring new challenges to the combustor research and design. With the motivation to design high performance and clean combustor, computational fluid dynamics （CFD） is utilized as the powerful design approach. In this paper, Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes （RANS） equations of reactive two-phase flow in an experimental low emission combustor is performed. The numerical approach uses an implicit compressible gas solver together with a Lagrangian liquid-phase tracking method and the extended coherent flamelet model for turbulence-combustion interaction. The NOx formation is modeled by the concept of post-processing, which resolves the NOx transport equation with the assumption of frozen temperature distribution. Both turbulence-combustion interaction model and NOx formation model are firstly evaluated by the comparison of experimental data published in open literature of a lean direct injection （LDI） combustor. The test rig studied in this paper is called low emission stirred swirl （LESS） combustor, which is a two-stage model combustor, fueled with liquid kerosene （RP-3） and designed by Beihang University （BUAA）. The main stage of LESS combustor employs the principle of lean prevaporized and premixed （LPP） concept to reduce pollutant, and the pilot stage depends on a diffusion flame for flame stabili-zation. Detailed numerical results including species distribution, turbulence performance and burning performance are qualita-tively and quantitatively evaluated. Numerical prediction of NOx emission shows a good agreement with test data at both idle condition and full power condition of LESS combustor. Preliminary results of the flame structure are shown in this paper. The flame stabilization mechanism and NOx reduction effort are also discussed with in-depth analysis.

Quantification of emission reduction potentials of primary air pollutants from residential solid fuel combustion by adopting cleaner fuels in China

Residential low efficient fuel burning is a major source of many air pollutants produced during incomplete combustions, and household air pollution has been identified as one of the top environmental risk factors. Here we compiled literature-reported emission factors of pollutants including carbon monoxide（CO）, total suspended particles（TSPs）, PM2.5, organic carbon（OC）,elemental carbon（EC） and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons（PAHs） for different household energy sources, and quantified the potential for emission reduction by clean fuel adoption. The burning of crop straws, firewood and coal chunks in residential stoves had high emissions per unit fuel mass but lower thermal efficiencies, resulting in high levels of pollution emissions per unit of useful energy, whereas pelletized biofuels and coal briquettes had lower pollutant emissions and higher thermal efficiencies. Briquetting coal may lead to 82%–88% CO, 74%–99%TSP, 73%–76% PM2.5, 64%–98% OC, 92%–99% EC and 80%–83% PAH reductions compared to raw chunk coal. Biomass pelletizing technology would achieve 88%–97% CO, 73%–87% TSP, 79%–88%PM2.5, 94%–96% OC, 91%–99% EC and 63%–96% PAH reduction compared to biomass burning. The adoption of gas fuels（i.e., liquid petroleum gas, natural gas） would achieve significant pollutant reduction, nearly 96% for targeted pollutants. The reduction is related not only to fuel change, but also to the usage of high efficiency stoves.

Effect of current emission abatement strategies on air quality improvement in China:A case study of Baotou,a typical industrial city in Inner Mongolia

The national Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan required significant decreases in PM_（2.5） levels over China.To explore more effective emission abatement strategies in industrial cities,a case study was conducted in Baotou to evaluate the current national control measures.The total emissions of SO_2,NO_X,PM_（2.5） and NMVOC（non-methane volatile organic compounds） in Baotou were 211.2 Gg,156.1 Gg,28.8 Gg,and 48.5 Gg,respectively in 2013,and they would experience a reduction of 30.4%,26.6%,15.1%,and 8.7%,respectively in 2017 and 39.0%,32.0%,24.4%,and 12.9%,respectively in2020.The SO_2,NO_Xand PM_（2.5） emissions from the industrial sector would experience a greater decrease,with reductions of 37%,32.7 and 24.3%,respectively.From 2013 to 2020,the concentrations of SO_2,NO_2,and PM_（2.5） are expected to decline by approximately 30%,10% and 14.5%,respectively.The reduction rate of SNA（sulfate,nitrate and ammonium）concentrations was significantly higher than that of PM_（2.5） in 2017,implying that the current key strategy toward controlling air pollutants from the industrial sector is more powerful for SNA.Although air pollution control measures implemented in the industrial sector could greatly reduce total emissions,constraining the emissions from lower sources such as residential coal combustion would be more effective in decreasing the concentration of PM_（2.5） from 2017 to 2020.These results suggest that even for a typical industrial city,the reduction of PM_（2.5） concentrations not only requires decreases in emissions from the industrial sector,but also from the low emission sources.The seasonal variation in sulfate concentration also showed that emission from coal-burning is the key factor to control during the heating season.

Air pollutant emissions induced by rural-to-urban migration during China's urbanization(2005-2015)

As the world's most populous country,China has witnessed rapid urbanization in recent decades,with population migration from rural to urban(RU)regions as the major driving force.Due to the large gap between rural and urban consumption and investment level,large-scale RU migration impacts air pollutant emissions and creates extra uncertainties for air quality improvement.Here,we integrated population migration assessment,an environmentally extended inputeoutput model and structural decomposition analysis to evaluate the NOx,SO2 and primary PM2.5 emissions induced by RU migration during China's urbanization from 2005 to 2015.The results show that RU migration increased air pollutant emissions,while the increases in NOx and SO2 emissions peaked in approximately 2010 at 2.4 Mt and 2.2 Mt,accounting for 9.2%and 8.7%of the national emissions,respectively.The primary PM2.5 emissions induced by RU migration also peaked in approximately 2012 at 0.3 Mt,accounting for 2.8%of the national emissions.The indirect emissions embodied in consumption and investment increased,while household direct emissions decreased.The widening gap between urban and rural investment and consumption exerted a major increasing effect on migration-induced emissions;in contrast,the falling emission intensity contributed the most to the decreasing effect benefitting from end-of-pipe control technology applications as well as improving energy efficiency.The peak of air pollutant emissions induced by RU migration indicates that although urbanization currently creates extra environmental pressure in China,it is possible to reconcile urbanization and air quality improvement in the future with updating urbanization and air pollution control policies.

Biomass briquette fuel,boiler types and pollutant emissions of industrial biomass boiler:A review

Biomass is considered a renewable and cleaner energy source alternative to fossil fuels.In recent years,industrial biomass boilers have been rapidly developed and widely used in the industrial field.This work makes a review on the fuel types used in industrial biomass boilers,the fuel characteristics and the characteristics of air pollutants emitted from the combustion of industrial biomass boilers and other contents in different studies.However,the existing research still has many deficiencies.In the future,further research on biomass fuel,industrial biomass boiler combustion process and the pollutants emitted by industrial biomass boiler combustion,especially the carbonaceous aerosol emitted by in-dustrial biomass boiler and carbonaceous aerosol optical properties still need to be made.At the same time,the potential harm of carbonaceous aerosols emitted from industrial biomass boiler sources to human health and climate change needs to be studied in depth.This review provides a scientific basis for the accurate evaluation of industrial biomass boilers and the effective prevention and control of various pollutants of industrial biomass boilers.

Seasonal variations and spatial distribution of particulate matter emissions from a ventilated laying hen house in Northeast China

With the development of concentrated animal feeding operations in China,the air pollution problem has drawn widespread public attention.Residents living near farms are suffering from the emissions of particulate matter(PM)and odors.However,scientific data on the characteristics of these emissions are limited to the establishment and evaluation of mitigation strategies in China.This study was conducted to provide fundamental information on the concentrations of PM inside and outside a typical ventilated laying hen house in northeastern China.The results showed that outdoor PM concentrations of this laying hen house did not meet the requirements of the environmental quality standard of China’s livestock and poultry farms in the two days out of six sampling days in summer,while indoor PM concentrations met the environmental requirements during this study.The indoor and outdoor PM concentrations were highly correlated in summer,and over 60%of particles indoor were emitted outside via mechanical ventilation.There were more fine particles dominated both inside and outside of the laying hen house.Besides,twelve and nine elements were measured from the PM sources inside and outside laying hen house,respectively.PM control strategies may be adjusted based on the status of exhaust fans,the ages of laying hens,atmospheric conditions,and routine house management to well reduce PM emissions and improve control efficiency.

City level CO_(2) and local air pollutants co-control performance evaluation: A case study of 113 key envir on mental protection cities in China

‘Co-control',or synergistically reducing CO_(2)and local air polluta nt emissions,is an important strategy for cities to achieve'low carb on'and'blue sky'simultaneously.However,there were few studies to evaluate and compare the level of co-control of CO_(2) and local air pollutants in cities year.The present study proposed qualitative and quantitative methods to evaluate the level of co-control of CO_(2)and three local air pollutant(SO_(2).NOX,and particulate matter PM)emissions in key environmental protection cities in China over two periods(2012-2015 and 2015-2018).Statistical analysis found that,though three local air pollutant emissions positively correlated with CO_(2) emission,no significantly positive correlation was found between local air pollutants emission reductions and CO_(2) emission reductions,indicating that co-control effects were poor in general.By using the co-control effect coordinate system,qualitative evaluation showed that less than half of the sample cities could achieve co-control of the total amount of CO_(2) and local air pollutants.By employing the indicator of emission reduction equivalence(EReq),quantitative evaluation showed that the co-control level of the sample cities improved in 2015-2018 compared with 2012-2015.Further regression analysis showed that,reducing coal consumption and economic development significantly enhanced the co-control performance of the observed cities.The present case study proved that the proposed methods for evaluation and comparison of the city co-control performance works well,and can be used in other countries and regions to promote global cities racing to carbon and local air pollutants co-control.

Estimating emissions from crop residue open burning in China based on statistics and MODIS fire products

With the objective of reducing the large uncertainties in the estimations of emissions from crop residue open burning, an improved method for establishing emission inventories of crop residue open burning at a high spatial resolution of 0.25°× 0.25° and a temporal resolution of1 month was established based on the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer（MODIS） Thermal Anomalies/Fire Daily Level3 Global Product（MOD/MYD14A1）. Agriculture mechanization ratios and regional crop-specific grain-to-straw ratios were introduced to improve the accuracy of related activity data. Locally observed emission factors were used to calculate the primary pollutant emissions. MODIS satellite data were modified by combining them with county-level agricultural statistical data, which reduced the influence of missing fire counts caused by their small size and cloud cover. The annual emissions of CO2, CO, CH4,nonmethane volatile organic compounds（NMVOCs）, N2O, NOx, NH3, SO2, fine particles（PM2.5）,organic carbon（OC）, and black carbon（BC） were 150.40, 6.70, 0.51, 0.88, 0.01, 0.13, 0.07, 0.43,1.09, 0.34, and 0.06 Tg, respectively, in 2012. Crop residue open burning emissions displayed typical seasonal and spatial variation. The highest emission regions were the Yellow-Huai River and Yangtse-Huai River areas, and the monthly emissions were highest in June（37%）.Uncertainties in the emission estimates, measured as 95% confidence intervals, range from a low of within ±126% for N2O to a high of within ± 169% for NH3.

Design and demonstration of a next-generation air quality attainment assessment system for PM_(2.5)and O_3

Due to the increasingly stringent standards, it is important to assess whether the proposed emission reduction will result in ambient concentrations that meet the standards. The Software for Model Attainment Test-Community Edition （SMAT-CE） is developed for demonstrating attainment of air quality standards of O3 and PM2.5. SMAT-CE improves computational efficiency and provides a number of advanced visualization and analytical functionalities on an integrated GIS platform. SMAT-CE incorporates historical measurements of air quality parameters and simulated air pollutant concentrations under a number of emission inventory scenarios to project the level of compliance to air quality standards in a targeted future year. An application case study of the software based on the U.S. National Ambient Air Quality Standards （NAAQS） shows that SMAT-CE is capable of demonstrating the air quality attainment of annual PM2.5 and 8-hour O3 for a proposed emission control policy.

Development and case study of a science-based software platform to support policy making on air quality

This article describes the development and implementations of a novel software platform that supports real-time, science-based policy making on air quality through a user-friendly interface. The software, RSM-VAT, uses a response surface modeling（RSM） methodology and serves as a visualization and analysis tool（VAT） for three-dimensional air quality data obtained by atmospheric models. The software features a number of powerful and intuitive data visualization functions for illustrating the complex nonlinear relationship between emission reductions and air quality benefits. The case study of contiguous U.S.demonstrates that the enhanced RSM-VAT is capable of reproducing the air quality model results with Normalized Mean Bias 〈 2% and assisting in air quality policy making in near real time.

The contribution of small leaks in a baghouse filter to dust emission in the PM2.s range-A system approach

The contribution of leakage in a baghouse filter （defined as a short circuit between the upstream and downstream sides of the filter） to the emission of fine particles is quantified in comparison to other dust emission sources, and the influence of key operating variables on overall system response is analyzed. The study was conducted on a well-maintained pilot-scale filter unit （9 bags of 500 g/m^2 calendered polyester needle felt; total surface area 4.2 m^2） operated in Ap-controlled mode over a range of pulsing intensities, with two types of test dust （one free-flowing and the other cohesive） at inlet concentrations of 10 and 30 g/m^3. Leaks included single holes between 0.5 and 4 mm diameter, intentionally placed in either the plenum plate or one of the filter bags, as well as seamlines from bag confectioning. Emissions were sep- arated by source into a transient contribution due to dust penetration through the filter bags after each cleaning pulse, and a continuous contribution from leaks. This separation was based on a novel method of data processing that relies on time-resolved concentration measurements with a specially calibrated optical particle counter. Tiny leaks on the order of 1 mm generated the same emission level as all the bags combined, and dominated continuous emissions. The equivalent leak cross section （leakage = media emission） was about 1 ppm of the total installed filter surface, independent of upstream dust concentra- tion. Leakage through open seamlines amounted to 75% of media emissions in case of free-flowing test dust. Leakage was restricted to aerodynamic diameters less than ~5 μm （roughly the PM2.s mass frac- tion）. For comparison, time-averaged mass penetration through conventional needle-felt media ranged from about 10^-5 to 10^-6, depending on cohesiveness of the particle material and pulse cleaning intensity, giving emission levels between about 0.02 and 0.2 mg/m^3 at the reference concentration of 10 R/m^2.

Variations in traffic-related polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in PM2.5 in Kanazawa, Japan, after the implementation of a new vehicle emission regulation

A three-year sampling campaign was conducted at a roadside air pollution monitoring station in the urban area of Kanazawa, Japan. Due to a new emission regulation, PAHs levels decreased over the sampling campaign, exhibiting values of 706 ± 413 pg/m^(3) in 2017, 559 ±384 pg/m^(3) in 2018, and 473 ± 234 pg/m^(3) in 2019. In each year, similar seasonal variations in PAHs levels were observed, with higher levels observed in winter and lower levels in summer. Among the PAHs isomer ratios, we observed that the ratio of benzo[b]fluoranthene(BbF) and benzo[k]fluoranthene(BkF), [Bb F]/([BbF] + [BkF]), and the ratio of indeno[1,2,3-cd]pyrene(IDP) and benzo[ghi]perylene(BgPe), [IDP]/([BgPe] + [IDP]), showed stability over the sampling campaign and were less affected by the new emission regulation, seasonal variations, and regional characteristics. When using the combined ratio ranges of 0.66-0.80([Bb F]/[BbF] + [BkF]) and 0.26-0.49([IDP]/[Bg Pe] + [IDP]), traffic emissions were clearly distinguished from other PAHs emission sources. Principal component analysis(PCA) and positive matrix factorization(PMF) were also performed to further analyse the characteristics of traffic-related PAHs. Overall, this study affirmed the effectiveness of the new emission regulation in the reduction of PAHs emissions and provided a combined range for identifying PAHs traffic emission sources.

REMOTE SENSING OF AIR TEMPERATURE PROFILE AND SURFACE EMISSIVITY FROM HIRS2 DATA

A physical method,based on the simplification of surface radiation terms in remote sensing equations, has been suggested to retrieve the surface temperature,vertical temperature profile and surface emissivity from the first eight channel observations of TIROS-N/HIRS2.Analyses of several examples indicate that this method can obtain much more accurate temperatures in the lower atmosphere than a statistical technique, and that the surface temperature and emissivity retrieved are also reasonable.

PM_(2.5)and water-soluble inorganic ion concentrations decreased faster in urban than rural areas in China

We investigated variations of PM_(2.5)and water-soluble inorganic ions chemical characteristics at nine urban and rural sites in China using ground-based observations.From 2015 to 2019,mean PM_(2.5)concentration across all sites decreased by 41.9μg/m~3with a decline of 46%at urban sites and 28%at rural sites,where secondary inorganic aerosol(SIAs)contributed to 21%(urban sites)and 17%(rural sites)of the decreased PM_(2.5).SIAs concentrations underwent a decline at urban locations,while sulfate(SO_(4)^(2–)),nitrate(NO_(3)^(–)),and ammonium(NH_(4)^(+))decreased by 49.5%,31.3%and 31.6%,respectively.However,only SO_(4)^(2–)decreased at rural sites,NO_(3)^(–)increased by 21%and NH_(4)^(+)decreased slightly.Those changes contributed to an overall SIAs increase in 2019.Higher molar ratios of NO_(3)^(–)to SO_(4)^(2–)and NH_(4)^(+)to SO_(4)^(2–)were observed at urban sites than rural sites,being highest in the heavily polluted days.Mean molar ratios of NH_(3)/NH_xwere higher in 2019 than 2015 at both urban and rural sites,implying increasing NH_xremained as free NH_(3).Our observations indicated a slower transition from sulfate-driven to nitrate-driven aerosol pollution and less efficient control of NO_(x)than SO_(2)related aerosol formation in rural regions than urban regions.Moreover,the common factor at urban and rural sites appears to be a combination of lower SO_(4)^(2–)levels and an increasing fraction of NO_(3)^(–)to PM_(2.5)under NH_(4)^(+)-rich conditions.Our findings imply that synchronous reduction in NO_(x)and NH_(3)emissions especially rural areas would be effective to mitigate NO_(3)^(–)-driven aerosol pollution.