An Efficient Multipollutant System for Measuring Real-World Emissions from Stationary and Mobile Sources

Abstract

A portable dilution sampling and measurement system was developed for measuring multipollutant emissions from stationary and mobile sources under real-world operating conditions. This system draws a sample of exhaust gas from the source, dilutes it with filtered air and quantifies total volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), nitric oxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ), sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ), oxygen (O 2 ), particle size distribution, particle number and mass concentrations, and black carbon (BC) concentration at 1-6 sec interval. Integrated samples by canisters and filter packs are acquired for laboratory analyses of VOC speciation, particle mass concentration, light absorption, elements, isotopes, ions, ammonia (NH 3 ), hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S), sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ), carbon, and organic compounds. Experiments were carried out to evaluate this system. The accuracy of key real-time instruments were found to deviate < ± 12% from references. CO 2 was used as the tracer gas to verify the concentration uniformity in the three measurement modules and relative concentration difference was < 5.1%. Instrument response time was tested by emissions from lighting and burning matches. The DustTrak DRX and optical particle counter (OPC) had the fastest response time, while other instruments had 3.5-21.5 sec delay from the DustTrak DRX and OPC. This system was applied to measure emissions from burning pine logs in a wood stove. The real-time data showed flaming, transition, and smoldering phases, and allowed real-time emission ratios to be calculated. Combing real-time data and laboratory analysis, this measurement system allows the development of multipollutant emission factors and source profiles.

Aerosol emissions factors from traditional biomass cookstoves in India: insights from field measurements

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A Biomass Combustion Chamber: Design, Evaluation, and a Case Study of Wheat Straw Combustion Emission Tests

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Real-Time Performance of the microAeth® AE51 and the Effects of Aerosol Loading on Its Measurement Results at a Traffic Site

“…They have been used extensively to monitor environmental BC levels because of their ease of operation, and favorable time resolution (Watson et al, 2005;Park et al, 2006;Chow et al, 2009). Such online measurement instruments are critical to research studies that seek to characterize short-term and/or long-term variability in BC levels, such as by measuring source emissions that change rapidly, comparing time-varying outdoor/indoor air pollution levels, or observing dynamic trends in ambient air quality (Badarinath and Latha, 2006;Fruin et al, 2008;Rodríguez et al, 2008;Sandradewi et al, 2008;Dutkiewicz et al, 2009;Wang et al, 2009;Snyder et al, 2010;Boogaard et al, 2011;Hyvärinen et al, 2011;Reche et al, 2011;Viana et al, 2011;Wang et al, 2011;Reddy et al, 2012;Wang et al, 2012;Cheng et al, 2013). They also could be used to evaluate the light absorption coefficient of aerosol by measuring the attenuation of light through deposited aerosol (Lavanchy et al, 1999;Weingartner et al, 2003;Arnott et al, 2005;Fialho et al, 2005;Schmid et al, 2006).…”