1

Understanding the sources of air pollutants is very

important;

the pollutant can be develop

only if we have information on their sources.

2
The measures to reduce air pollution in a given area are
always very expensive.

General principle “The one who cause pollution pays”.

Does this work?

Although at first sight it looks like these costs are

absorbed by the industry causing the pollution,
actually the public provides them as the industries
reflect them to the people as price increases in their
products.

3
E.g., It is always easy to force a utility plant to construct
a desulfurization (commonly called desox) unit.

Although the plant pays for the initial investment, the

electricity it sells will be more expensive after the
installation of the unit.

Since you will be the ones who buy that electricity,

you will be actually paying for desox unit.

So, you must judge pollution that utility plant causing

before you (public) decide to pay or not to pay for the
scrubber
4
The air pollution sources can be broadly divided into two
categories:

 NATURAL

 ANTHROPOGENIC (man-made) SOURCES

5
Natural Sources

Best known of natural sources is volcanic

eruptions.

Volcanoes emit:

Huge amounts of particulate matter

Gases such as SO2, H2S

Sometimes fair amount of radioactivity.

6
One characteristic of
volcanic eruptions is the
global transport of
emissions.

Emissions from
volcanoes are injected
to the stratosphere
where  is 2 years. With
such long residence
time they can be
transported globally.
7
Another natural source of pollutants is forest fires.

Are forest fires are natural sources? 

Not always, because men intentionally start most of

them.

Forest fires emits large quantities of pollutants such

as smoke, unburned hydrocarbons, CO, NOx.

8
They can be very large.

E.g., Plumes of the forest fires in Brasil were

detected in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Satellite photographs have shown huge areas in
the south America are covered by plumes from
burning Amazon rainforests. Figure

9
10
Amazon basin

Amazon basin
A third important natural source of pollutants is the dust
storms in arid regions and desert areas.

Only particulate matter is emitted to the atmosphere,

no gaseous pollutants

The emissions can be very large in quantity.

It is estimated that every year 600 million tons of

dust becomes airborne from Saharan Desert.

Red dust rains that is observed all over the

Mediterranean is the Saharan Dust.

12
13
Emissions can be transported over very long distances.

E.g., Saharan dust is detected in North America.

Dust from Asian deserts (such as Gobi) is routinely
detected at Hawaii.

Main mechanism to form sediments in the middle

of the ocean

14
15
Oceans are also a source of atmospheric
pollutants (constituents)
Two mechanisms for emissions
Particle emissions by buble bursting
Gas emissions by evaporation

Particle emission by buble bursting

16
17
Emission of gases by evaporation.

Various gases such as vapors of Se, As, Br, I,

and

organic compounds such as dimethyl sulfide

(DMS)

are also released from ocean to the atmosphere.

These gases form as a product of the metabolism of

marine organisms, particularly planktons, since they
are in the gas phase they escape the sea water-
atmosphere boundary and become airborne.
18
Among these DMS is the most important.

DMS  methanesulfonic acid (MSA)  SO2  SO4

The SO4 is the most important nucleus to form clouds.

The SO2 produced by this mechanism is equal to SO2

produced from anthropogenic sources

19
Plants and trees are also natural sources of pollutants.

Plants and trees are the most important source of

hydrocarbons in the planet.

The reactions of organic compounds emitted from

trees, which are called terpenes, can form organic
particles. These particles are the main reasons for
“blue haze” that you see over the forests at early
morning hours.

20
Anthropogenic Sources (man-made sources)

Emissions are centralized after manufacturing moved

from small production facilities in cities to large
industrial installations early in 20th century.

Before this so-called industrial revolution, emissions

were at low levels and from many small point sources,
now many of those low-levels small emissions are
combined and emitted all at once from tall stacks.

21
Is this good or bad in terms of air quality?
The answer is not clear. There are several points that
should be considered.
1. Total emissions from large plant is definitely less
than the sum of small individual emissions.
2. Emissions from industries are from tall stacks
(can be as high as 300 m) and does not have
substantial effects on the immediate surrounding,
whereas low level emissions from small
production units cause severe air pollution
problems in the immediate vicinity of the shop,
particularly if several of them are together. 22
3. Emissions from large plants can have acute effect
on the environment if they are not properly sited
(e.g. Yatagan thermal power plant)

4. High-level emissions from large plants can cause

regional problems such as acid rain or
photooxidants, but low-level emissions from
individual manufacturing units can not be
transported to have regional effects.

23
5. Emissions from large plants can be controlled, but
emissions from small producers can not.

Net result: Production in large industrial facilities is

more environment friendly if they are properly sited
and if emissions are carefully controlled.

24
Utilities:

Power Plants

Convert the potential energy in fuel to first heat (to form

steam into turbines) then electrical energy in turbines.

Note that:
People always blame electrical energy production (TEAS
in this country), but we never think that you and I are the
ones who use the energy. If we don’t use electrical
energy, TEAS will not produce it and there will be no
emissions.
So, who is polluting the environment, us or TEAS?
25
Even when all precautions are taken to control emissions
from a thermal power plant, amount of fuel burned is so
large that there will always be substantial emission of
combustion products.

26
E.g., A power plant producing 2000 MW of electricity
(Afsin Elbistan thermal power plant produces that
much).

Such a power plant will burn 1 000 000 kg of coal per

hour of operation.

If that coal contains 4% refractory fractions (ash) (4%

ash coal is fairly good quality of coal, Afsin Elbistan
plant uses coal with ash content of 16%)

It produces 40 000 kg ash every hour.

27
Approximately 50% of that ash is removed at the
furnace, before it enters the stack.

But remaining 50% enters the stack with flue gases.

Approximately 20 000 kg of ash/hour enters the stack.

If the plant is equipped with a precipitator which is typically 99%

efficient, then 99% of the ash entering the stack is removed at
the control unit. (99% of 20 000 kg is 19 800 kg), but 1% of the
ash entering the stack escapes the precipitator and emitted to
the atmosphere.

Since 1% of 20 000 kg is 200 kg, that 2 000 MW power plant

emits 200 kg of ash to the atmosphere every hour.

28
If its not equipped with a precipitator, then emission rate
would be 20 000 kg/hr.

If the coal that is burned in the power plant has 1% S

in it as impurity

It will produce 20 000 kg/hr SO2 in the furnace

(almost all of the S in coal is converted to SO2 (99%)
and SO3 (1%) during combustion)

29
 If these flue gases are passed through a
desulfurization unit which is 95% efficient, 19 000
kg/hr is held at the scrubber, but remaining 1 000 kg
SO2 is emitted to the atmosphere every hour.

By a similar calculation you can also show that the same

plant emits approximately 8 000 tons of NOx to the
atmosphere every hour.

30
 Incinerators

Units where solid wastes, particularly hazardous

solid wastes are burned at high temperatures.

In earlier days (70’s, early 80’s) these units were built in

large numbers around the world, because they were
visualized as a cheap means of disposing solid wastes.

But now there are questions on their usefulness due to

their emissions of highly mutagenic organic compounds
such as dioxins and furans.

31
In Turkey there is only one large incinerator in Kocaeli.

Until very recently Ministry of the Environment did not

allow its operations because of its Dioxin emissions.

32
Petroleum

Refineries are essentially closed systems, emissions

should not normally occur.

But there are always leaks from valves, vents etc.

Refineries try to minimize their emissions not only to

protect the environment, but also for economic
reasons.

33
Their emissions are refined crude oil products, which
have economic value.

If they can recover 1 – 2% of those products that

escapes to the atmosphere the cost can cover the
cost of the most sophisticated control device.

However refineries are not leak-free.

TÜPRAŞ refinery leaks approximately 60 kg Co and

similar amounts of rare-earth elements to the
atmosphere from their catalysts.

34
Main types of emissions include Hydrocarbons (from leaks and
loading), SO2 (from boilers, treaters and incineration
processes), CO (from regenerators and incinerators), NOx (from
combustion sources), odors and particulate matter

Loading facilities in refineries can be significant emission

source if they are not controlled.

The vapors of refined products such as gasoline should be

recovered.

Hydrocarbons which are major emissions from refineries are

photo chemically active, can result in the formation of O3
and other photoxidants.

35
Personal sources:

Although production is centralized in large industries,

there are still many personal sources, which emit at low
level and from individual houses.

➢Motor vehicle emissions

➢Household heating emissions

➢Home cooking emissions etc.

Figure 6.4 shows estimated personal emissions from US

family of four persons. 36
Regulation of such emissions is more difficult, because it
involve human perception.

It is difficult to convince people that their own

emissions are more than the emission of industries,
which is actually true.

37
Let us do a small calculation
#of houses in Turkey = 20 000 000 (TÜIK)
İf you turn a 100 W light bulb for one hour in each of these
100 W x 20 000 000 = 2x109 W per hour ➔ or 2 000 MW per

What does this mean?

Shutting off a 500 MW power plant for 4 hours in a day
-200 kg PM emission
-1 ton SO2 emission
-8 tons Nox emission

38
STATIONARY SOURCES

Variety of processes can exist at a given area.

The relative significance of each of these plants

depends on:

✓Percent of total emissions, that particular plant (or

process) is responsible for.

✓The degree of toxicity of emissions

✓How obnoxious emissions are (odor, appearance

etc).

39
Stationary sources generally have fairly uniform
emissions. They can be controlled with available
technologies.

Control technology can vary slightly from one

stationary source type.

Similar control technologies can be applied for the

same type of sources.

40
MOBILE SOURCES

Mobile sources refer to transportation.

The sources included in this group are given in Table 6-4.

Dominating source (both in number and emissions) is

gasoline power automobile

Main emissions are NO, HC’s, CO.

41
These are photochemically active.

NO oxidizes in the atmosphere into NO2. NO2

reacts with HC’s (emitted again from cars) to form
variety of oxidized organic material, plus O3,
setting up so-called “photochemical smog”.

42
Cars are now equipped with “catalytic converters” to
reduce HC emissions.

Catalytic converters consist of ceramic material

coated with Pt.

When hot exhaust gases comes into contact with

converter, the HC’s oxidize to CO2.

If there are no HC’s photochemical smog can not form,

because there is no reagent with which NO2 can react.

43
Pb is an important toxic emission from gasoline-powered
cars.

It is added as tetraethyl lead to gasoline as

antiknocking agent. After combustion in the engine it
is emitted as PbO.

But Pb emissions have declined because cars having

catalytic converter cannot use them.

44
The emission sources in a gasoline-powered car
are shown in the figure

Emissions from cars is a function of engine

temperature (air to fuel ratio) Figure

45
46
Figure 6.7. Combustion emissions as a function of peak combustion temperatures

47
 PM Gases

Heating, oil 5 kg yr-1 50 kg yr-1 Toplam

72 kg yr-1 PM
Stove or 20 kg yr-1, 20 kg yr-1
1840 kg yr-1 gases
fireplace

2 kg yr-1, 10 kg yr-1 For a town w/ 3 million population

215 000 tons PM yr-1

Otomobil 5 kg yr-1 1500 kg yr
6 000 000 tons of gases yr-1

Open burning 20 kg yr-1 35 kg yr

Cooking 10 kg yr-1 45 kg yr

Yard maitanence 5 kg yr-1 30 kg yr

Figure 6.5. Energies involved in combustion process

49
Figure 6.6. Solid fuel combustion schematic

50
Table 6.1. Comparison of combustion pollutants

51
Figure 6.8. Flow diagram for a phosphoric acid plant

52
Figure 6.9. Flow diagram for a normal super phosphate plant

53
Table 6.2. Miscellaneous inorganic chemical and associated air pollution emissions

54
Table 6.3. Changes in steel making processes in the US

55
Table 6.4. Emissions from mobile sources

56
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