Applications of ground-based mobile atmospheric monitoring: real-time characterization of source emissions and ambient concentrations

J. Douglas Goetz

doi:10.17918/etd-7281

Gas and particle phase atmospheric pollution are known to impact human and environmental health as well as contribute to climate forcing. While many atmospheric pollutants are regulated or controlled in the developed world uncertainty still remains regarding the impacts from under characterized emission sources, the interaction of anthropogenic and naturally occurring pollution, and the chemical and physical evolution of emissions in the atmosphere, among many other uncertainties. Because of the complexity of atmospheric pollution many types of monitoring have been implemented in the past, but none are capable of perfectly characterizing the atmosphere and each monitoring type has known benefits and disadvantages. Ground-based mobile monitoring with fast-response in-situ instrumentation has been used in the past for a number of applications that fill data gaps not possible with other types of atmospheric monitoring. In this work, ground-based mobile monitoring was implemented to quantify emissions from under characterized emission sources using both moving and portable applications, and used in a novel way for the characterization of ambient concentrations. In the Marcellus Shale region of Pennsylvania two mobile platforms were used to estimate emission rates from infrastructure associated with the production and transmission of natural gas using two unique methods. One campaign investigated emissions of aerosols, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), methane, carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and carbon dioxide (CO₂) from natural gas wells, well development practices, and compressor stations using tracer release ratio methods and a developed fenceline tracer release correction factor. Another campaign investigated emissions of methane from Marcellus Shale gas wells and infrastructure associated with two large national transmission pipelines using the "Point Source Gaussian" method described in the EPA OTM-33a. During both campaigns ambient concentrations of methane, CO and other pollutants were continuously monitored while driving throughout the region. A smoothing technique was developed to remove contributions of direct unmixed emissions to produce a dataset that can be used in comparison with other monitoring techniques (e.g. stationary, aircraft). Finally, a portable mobile lab equipped with fast-response aerosol instrumentation including an Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (AMS) was used to characterize non-refractory aerosol and black carbon emissions from common, but under characterized emission sources in South Asia (i.e. brick kilns, cookstoves, open garbage burning, irrigation pumps). Speciated submicron aerosol emission factors, size distributions, and mass spectral profiles were retrieved for each emission source. This work demonstrates that ground-based mobile laboratory measurements are useful for characterizing emissions and ambient concentrations in authentic conditions outside of the conventional laboratory environment, and in ways not possible with other atmospheric monitoring platforms.

Applications of ground-based mobile atmospheric monitoring: real-time characterization of source emissions and ambient concentrations

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Applications of ground-based mobile atmospheric monitoring: real-time characterization of source emissions and ambient concentrations

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