scholarly journals Fugitive Emissions of Volatile Organic Compounds from a Tailings Pond in the Oil Sands Region of Alberta

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samar G. Moussa ◽  
Ralf M. Staebler ◽  
Yuan You ◽  
Amy Leithead ◽  
Meguel A. Yousif ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Volatile Organic Compounds ◽  
Organic Compounds ◽  
Oil Sands ◽  
Fugitive Emissions ◽  
Tailings Pond ◽  
Volatile Organic

First Comprehensive Measurements of Emission Rates of Greenhouse Gases, Volatile Organic Compounds and Reduced Sulfur Compounds from a Tailings Pond in the Alberta Oil Sands

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralf Staebler ◽  
Samar Moussa ◽  
Yuan You ◽  
Hayley Hung ◽  
Maryam Moradi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Volatile Organic Compounds ◽  
Organic Compounds ◽  
Oil Sands ◽  
Regulatory Compliance ◽  
Sulfur Compounds ◽  
Emission Rates ◽  
Reduced Sulfur Compounds ◽  
Volatile Organic ◽  
Reduced Sulfur

<p>Canada’s Oil Sands Region in northern Alberta contains the world’s largest deposits of commercially exploited bitumen. Extraction of synthetic crude oil from these deposits is a water intensive process, requiring large ponds for water recycling and/or final storage of tailings, already covering a total of over 100 km<sup>2</sup> of liquid surface area in the Athabasca Oil sands. The primary extraction tailings ponds primarily contain sand, silt, clay and unrecovered bitumen, while a few secondary extraction ponds also receive solvents and inorganic and organic by-products of the extraction process. Fugitive emissions of pollutants from these ponds to the atmosphere may therefore be a concern, but until recently, data on emission rates for many pollutants, other than a few reported under regulatory compliance monitoring, were sparse. We present here the results from a comprehensive field campaign to quantify the emissions from a secondary extraction pond to the atmosphere of 68 volatile organic compounds (VOCs), 22 polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs), 8 reduced sulfur compounds as well as methane, carbon dioxide and ammonia. Three micrometeorological flux methods (eddy covariance, vertical gradients and inverse dispersion modeling) were evaluated for methane fluxes to ensure their mutual comparability. Methane and carbon dioxide fluxes were similar to previous results based on flux chamber measurements. Emission rates for 12 PACs, alkanes and aromatic VOCs, several sulfur species, and ammonia were found to be significant. PACs were dominated by methyl naphthalenes and phenanthrenes, while diethylsulfide and  and n-heptane were the dominant reduced sulfur and VOC species, respectively. The role of these previously unavailable emission rates in regional pollutant budgets will be discussed.</p>

The effect of anthropogenic volatile organic compound sources on ozone in Boise, Idaho

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Vargas ◽  
Marie-Cecile Chalbot ◽  
Robert O'Brien ◽  
George Nikolich ◽  
David W. Dubois ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Volatile Organic Compounds ◽  
Organic Compound ◽  
Organic Compounds ◽  
Volatile Organic Compound ◽  
Fugitive Emissions ◽  
Wildfire Smoke ◽  
Volatile Organic ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Photochemical Processing ◽  
Ozone Levels

Environmental context Volatile organic compounds are precursors of ozone, a pollutant with adverse environmental effects. It is important to determine the associations between the various sources of volatile organic compounds and ozone levels because emission controls are based on sources. We estimated the contributions of specific sources of volatile organic compounds on ozone levels using both measurements and statistical models, and found that traffic is the largest source even in events when wildfire smoke is present. Abstract Here, we present the application of a tiered approach to apportion the contributions of volatile organic compound (VOC) sources on ozone (O3) concentrations. VOCs from acetylene to n-propylbenzene were measured at two sites at Boise, Idaho, using an online pneumatically focussed gas chromatography system. The mean 24-h concentrations of individual VOCs varied from 0.4ppbC (parts per billion carbon) for 1-butene to 23.2ppbC for m- and p-xylene. The VOC sources at the two monitoring sites were determined by positive matrix factorisation. They were attributed to: (i) liquefied petroleum and natural gas (LPG/NG) emissions; (ii) fugitive emissions of olefins from fuel and solvents; (iii) fugitive emissions of aromatic VOCs from area sources and (iv) vehicular emissions. Vehicle exhausts accounted for 36 to 45% of VOCs followed by LPG/NG and fugitive emissions of aromatic VOCs. Evaluation of photochemical changes showed that the four separate VOC sources were identified by PMF rather than different stages of photochemical processing of fresh emissions. The contributions of VOC sources on daily 8-h maximum O3 concentrations measured at seven locations in the metropolitan urban area were identified by regression analysis. The four VOC sources added, on average, 6.4 to 16.5 parts per billion by volume (ppbv) O3, whereas the unexplained (i.e. intercept) O3 was comparable to non-wildfire policy-relevant background O3 levels in the absence of all anthropogenic emissions of VOC precursors in North America for the region. Traffic was the most significant source influencing O3 levels contributing up to 32ppbv for days with O3 concentrations higher than 75ppbv.

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