Coupling an online GC with a FIA for multidimensional VOC analysis of industrial air emissions
Under Section III of the amended Clean Air Act of 1979, EPA Method 25 was provided as a standard method for monitoring volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in industrial air emissions. This method was later revised and is the predecessor to EPA Method 25A. EPA method 25A is commonly used at industrial sites for regulatory testing of VOCs in stack emissions. Even though Method 25A, with the use of a flame ionization analyzer (FIA), can generate valuable data on total VOC emissions, it is a time average procedure which does not elucidate specific compounds present in the air stream. Information on the specific types of compounds, including their ratio at any point during a process can not be determined by EPA Method 25. The best method for obtaining this type of information would be provided by an online gas chromatograph (GC) or by a spectrophotometric method. Although online GC will probably never replace offline GC analysis in industrial air emission monitoring, use of a FIA coupled with an online GC can provide a multidimensional VOC analysis in an effort to understand the emission characteristics of their process. In this study, an online GC was used in combination with a FIA to study the air emissions from the forest products industry. Two industrial sites were chosen for the study: (1) a hardboard mill and (2) an oriented strand board (OSB) mill. The multidimensional analysis was able to elucidate the behavior of different components which constitute the continuous total VOC measurement provided by the FIA. In conjunction to the multidimensional analysis, compound identification in each of the press exhausts was performed via SPME collection and GC-MS analysis.
- Research Organization:
- Michigan Technological Univ., Houghton, MI (US)
- OSTI ID:
- 20002149
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-990608--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Rapid extraction and separation of VOCs from soil with SPME and short capillary columns
On-line membrane extraction microtrap gas chromatography (OLMEM-GC) for continuous monitoring of VOCs