Applications of Open-Path Fourier Transform Infrared for Identification of Volatile Organic Compound Pollution Sources and Characterization of Source Emission Behaviors
Abstract An open-path Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (OP-FTIR) system was set up for 3-day continuous line-averaged volatile organic compound (VOC) monitoring in a paint manufacturing plant. Seven VOCs (toluene, m-xylene, p-xylene, styrene, methanol, acetone, and 2-butanone) were identified in the ambient environment. Daytime-only batch operation mode was well explained by the time-series concentration plots. Major sources of methanol, m-xylene, acetone, and 2-butanone were identified in the southeast direction where paint solvent manufacturing processes are located. However, an attempt to uncover sources of styrene was not successful because the method detection limit (MDL) of the OP-FTIR system was not sensitive enough to produce conclusive data. In the second scenario, the OP-FTIR system was set up in an industrial complex to distinguish the origins of several VOCs. Eight major VOCs were identified in the ambient environment. The pollutant detected wind-rose percentage plots that clearly showed that ethylene, propylene, 2-butanone, and toluene mainly originated from the tank storage area, whereas the source of n-butane was mainly from the butadiene manufacturing processes of the refinery plant, and ammonia was identified as an accompanying reduction product in the gasoline desulfuration process. Advantages of OP-FTIR include its ability to simultaneously and continuously analyze many compounds, and its long path length monitoring has also shown advantages in obtaining more comprehensive data than the traditional multiple, single-point monitoring methods.
Open-path FTIR ozone measurements in Korea
In July 1997 the Republic of Korea became the 15th country to exceed 10-million registered motor vehicles. The number of cars has been increasing exponentially in Korea for the past 12 years opening an era of one car per household in this nation with a population of 44 million. The air quality effects of the growth of increasingly congested motor vehicle traffic in Seoul, home to more than one-fourth of the entire population, is of great concern to Korea's National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER). AIL's Open-Path FTIR air quality monitor, RAM 2000TM, has been used to quantify the ozone increase over the course of a warm summer day. The RAM 2000 instrument was setup on the roof of the 6-story NIER headquarters. The retroreflector was sited 180-m away across a major highway where it was tripod-mounted on top of the 6- story Korean National Institute of Health facility. During the Open-Path FTIR data taking, NIER Air Physics Division research team periodically tethered an airborne balloon containing pump and a potassium iodide solution to obtain absolute ozone concentration results which indicated that the ambient ozone level was 50 ppb when the Open-Path FTIR measurements began. Total ozone concentrations exceeded 120 ppb for five hours between 11:30 AM and 4:30 PM. The peak ozone concentration measured was 199 ppb at 12:56 PM. The averaged concentration for five and a half hours of data collection was 145 ppb. Ammonia concentrations were also measured.
Simultaneous concentrations of ammonia and nitric acid in a polluted atmosphere and their equilibrium relationship to particulate ammonium nitrate
Simultaneous absolute concentrations of ammonia and nitric acid in ambient air were measured with short integration times in Riverside, Calif. A kilometer path-length Fourier transform infrared spectrometer was utilized. During selected episodes, 24 hr high volume particulate samples were also collected and analyzed for ammonium and nitrate ions. Analysis supports the hypothesis that particulate ammonium nitrate is in equilibrium with its precursors, ammonia and HNO/sub 3/. 20 references, 3 tables.