Ranking of Chemicals Measured in Emissions from R&D Facilities
The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) operates a number of multidisciplinary laboratory research facilities for the U. S. Department of Energy and has sampled air chemical emissions from some of these facilities since 1998. The primary purpose of this sampling is to obtain data to compare estimated release fractions to those used for emissions estimates, verifying that methods used to determine compliance with air regulations and permits conservatively predict actual emissions. Sampling also identifies and quantifies emissions of air toxics to compare with compliance limits established by regulatory agencies. Hundreds of samples have been taken from four different buildings (325, 329, 331, and EMSL) over a 10-year time period. Results from initial sampling campaigns were evaluated and reported by Woodruff, Benar, and McCarthy (2000) who summarized the compliance approach used by PNNL and described sampling and analytical measurements for the first sampling campaigns. Conclusions reported in this paper were that none of the measurements of the target compounds exceeded an acceptable source impact level (ASIL) (Washington Administrative Code, Chapter 173-460) even using significant overestimation factors, and that an average release fraction calculated from the data provided reasonable validation of the factor used in compliance assessments. Subsequent analysis compared chemical signatures from the buildings (Ballinger, Duchsherer, and Metoyer 2008). Results from this analysis showed that stack emissions from three of the four buildings had relatively similar chemical signatures but the fourth building differed from the other three significantly using the developed metric. This paper presents additional analyses of the measured air chemical emissions to 1) rank the chemical compounds that present the greatest risk to a potential downstream receptor and 2) determine whether the sampling parameters and detection limits provided sufficient resolution to verify compliance at potential receptor locations. The ranking method includes chemical-specific parameters such as measured concentrations, detection limits, and regulatory limits plus building-specific parameters such as location, stack flow-rate, and distance to receptors.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 1015268
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-71288; TRN: US201111%%524
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 103rd Air and Waste Management Association Annual Conference and Exhibition, June 22-25, 2010, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 6:4605-4618
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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