Citation:

Battelle. AN ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY VERIFICATION (ETV) OF SEVEN ANALYZERS THAT MEASURE AMBIENT AMMONIA EMISSIONS AT AN ANIMAL FEEDING OPERATION.

Impact/Purpose:

The overall objective of the ETV Program is to accelerate the entrance of new environmental technologies into the domestic and international marketplace by identifying the environmental performance characteristics of commercial-ready technology through the evaluation of objective and quality assured data. This provides the potential purchasers and permitters with an independent and credible assessment of what they are buying and/or permitting. The AMS Center has received funding to performance verify monitoring technologies relevant for homeland security.

Description:

The Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) Program, beginning as an initiative of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1995, verifies the performance of commercially available, innovative technologies that can be used to monitor environmental quality. The ETV provides, through a third-party, quality-assured performance data so buyers and users of environmental technologies can make informed purchase and application decisions, thus providing one path to reducing emissions and improving human health. To provide cost-effective testing, Stakeholder committees, made up of members with diverse backgrounds, provide guidance to the ETV by identifying and prioritizing environmental technologies to address present day environmental quality challenges.

The ETV Advanced Monitoring Systems (AMS) Center, one of six ETV Centers, is actively involved in verifying the performance of advanced monitoring systems available to the public for purchase. The AMS Center participates in the mission of the ETV by providing Test Plans, Protocols, conducting independent performance tests of technologies, and preparing Verification Reports and Statements describing the results of the testing. Vendors of tested technologies can use the Verification Reports for marketing purposes. All approved Verification Reports are posted on the ETV Web Site as a form of distribution. The individual verification reports and statements describe by this abstract are seven ambient ammonia analyzers: Molecular Analytics IonPro-IMS Ammonia Analyzer (Ion Mobility Spectrometry Detection), Thermo Electron Corp. Model 17C Ammonia Analyzer (Chemiluminescence Detection), Ominisens TGA300 Ammonia Analyzer (IR Laser Spectroscopy with Photoacoustic Detection), Mechatronics Instruments BV AiRRmonia Ammonia Analyzer (Membrane Diffusion with Conductivity Detection), Bruker Daltonics, Inc. OPAG 22 Gas Analyzer (Open Path IR Spectroscopy Detection), Aerodyne Research, Inc. QC-TILDAS Analyzer infrared laser spectrometer (Tunable Diode Laser Spectroscopy), and Pranalytica, Inc. Nitrolux TM 1000 Ambient Ammonia Analyzer (Near IR Laser Spectroscopy with Photoacoustic Detection).

The objective of this verification test was to evaluate the analyzers's performance in measuring NH3 in ambient air. The testing was conducted in two phases. The first phase was conducted between September 8 and October 3, 2003, at a swine finishing farm near Ames, Iowa. The second phase was conducted between October 20 and November 14, 2003, at a cattle feedlot in Carroll, Iowa. These sites were selected to provide realistic testing conditions and were expected to exhibit a wide range of NH3 concentrations during the test periods. The verification test was designed to evaluate relative accuracy (RA), linearity, precision, response time, calibration and zero drift, interference effects, comparability, ease of use, and data completeness.

During each phase of the verification test, the analyzer's response to a series of NH3 gas standards of known concentration was used to quantify RA, linearity, precision, and calibration/zero drift. Ammonia gas standards ranging from 0 to 10,000 parts per billion (ppb) NH3 and 0 to 2,000 ppb NH3 were delivered during Phases I and II, respectively. The analyzer's response time, the time to reach 95% of the stable signal, was also assessed during the delivery of the gas standards. Interference effects were quantified from the analyzer's response to various chemical species that may be present at animal feeding operations; the potential interferent gases were delivered both in the presence and absence of NH3. The analyzer's response to ambient air also was evaluated during both phases as the comparability to simultaneous determinations by an ambient NH3 reference method (acid-coated denuders).

QA oversight of verification testing was provided by the EPA and Battelle. Battelle QA staff conducted a technical systems audit, a performance evaluation audit, and a data quality audit of 10% of the test data. The verification statement, full report, and test/QA plan for this verification are all available at www.epa.gov/etv/centers/center1.html.

Record Details: