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NEAR-REAL-TIME MEASUREMENT OF TRACE VOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUNDS FROM COMBUSTION PROCESSES USING AN ON-LINE GAS CHROMATOGRAPH
Citation:
Ryan*, J V., P M. Lemieux*, AND W. T. Preston. NEAR-REAL-TIME MEASUREMENT OF TRACE VOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUNDS FROM COMBUSTION PROCESSES USING AN ON-LINE GAS CHROMATOGRAPH. WASTE MANAGEMENT 18(6-8):403-410, (1998).
Impact/Purpose:
Journal Article
Description:
The U.S. EPA's current regulatory approach for combustion and incineration sources emphasizes the use of real-time continuous emission monitors (CEMs) for particulate, Metals, and volatile, semivolatile, and of nonvolatile organic compounds to monitor source emissions. Currently, the CEM technologies to support this approach have not been thoroughly developed and/or demonstrated. The EPA's Air Pollution Prevention and Control Division has developed a near-real-time volatile organic compound (VOC) CEM, using an on line gas chromatograph (OLGC), capable of measuring over 20 VOCs at concentrations typically found in well-operated combustion systems. The OLGC system consists of a sample delivery system, a sample concentrator, and a GC equipped with both flame ionization and electron capture detectors. As a result of information gained from participating in the 1995 U.S. EPA/DOE CEM demonstration program, system deficiencies were attenuated. Additional work has improved system performance, including increased automation and improved calibration technique. Measurement performance was examined in detail through comparisons to various CEM performance criteria. Specifically, calibration error, calibration drift error, and system bias were examined as a function of full scale (absolute error) and gas concentration (relative error). Although OLGC measurement performance was not able to meet standard EPA CEM measurement performance criteria, measurement performance was encouraging. This system is a suitable alternative to VOC reference method measurements which may be performed only intermittently. The system has demonstrated the ability to perform hourly trace level VOC measurements (0-100 ppbv) for as many as 23 different VOCs with a known level of measurement performance. The OLGC system is able to partially meet the need of true real-time VOC CEMs now and provides an alternative until such time that real-time VOC CEMs are commercially available.
