Page 57 - Air Pollution Control Engineering
P. 57

01_chap_wang.qxd  05/05/2004  11:46 am  Page 37
                    Air Quality and Pollution Control                                          37

                    stream parameters must be recalculated using a standard industrial equation when the
                    temperature of the gas stream is preheated, because when the gas stream temperature
                    increases, it increases the actual gas flow rate of the emission stream.


                    9. AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT
                    9.1. Recent Focus
                    9.1.1. Emission Sources
                       A recent focus of air quality management (12,18–61) has been on reducing natural and
                    man-made airborne contaminants from various sources: (1) point source hazardous air
                    emissions, (2) non-point-source fugitive hazardous emissions, (3) greenhouse or global
                    warming gases, (4) ozone-depleting gases, (5) indoor emissions that release asbestos,
                    microorganisms, radon gases, VOCs, lead, and so forth, (6) odor emissions, (7) vehicle
                    emissions, (8) wildfire emissions, and (9) terrorists’ emissions of airborne infectious
                    and/or toxic contaminants.
                       In this handbook, the chapters entitled “Fabric Filtration,” “Cyclones,” “Electrostatic
                    Precipitation,” “Web and Dry Scrubbing,” “Condensation,” “Flare Process,” “Thermal
                    Oxidation,” “Catalytic Oxidation,” “Gas-Phase Carbon  Adsorption,” and “Gas-Phase
                    Biofiltration” introduce the new technologies for removal of the point source hazardous air
                    emissions in detail. Another chapter, “Emerging Air Pollution Control  Technologies,”
                    introduces various new technologies for the treatment of non-point-sources fugitive haz-
                    ardous emissions and vehicle emissions.
                       Indoor and odor pollution problems are addressed in detail in the chapters entitled
                    “Ventilation and Air Conditioning,” “Indoor Air Pollution Control,” “Noise Pollution,”
                    and “Noise Control.” Additional literature of indoor and odor pollution control can be
                    found elsewhere (39–43,59).
                       Discussions of the greenhouse or global warming gases, and the ozone-depleting
                    gases are covered in Sections 9.2 and 9.4. The readers are also referred to a chapter
                    entitled “Carbon Sequestration” in ref. 59.
                       Terrorist-launched emissions of airborne biocontaminants and toxic gases cannot be
                    prevented nor controlled easily and cost-effectively (49–53). Rademakers (49) intro-
                    duced the biological warfare detection technologies and new decontamination methods.
                    Ziegler (50) introduced the procedures to deal with a terrorist incident emitting airborne
                    pathogenic microorganisms or toxic gases. Gudia (51) presented an overview of issues
                    related to environmental regulations as we attempt to deal with possible future terrorist
                    events. Abkowitz (52) raised communication issues related to dealing with possible
                    future emergencies.
                       As stated previously, lightning is the main cause of producing bad ozone in the tro-
                    pospheric zone and is also the indirect cause of large amounts of combustion-related air
                    pollution as a result of forest fires. In the United States alone, there are over 10,000 for-
                    est fires annually, which are mainly caused by lightning. Natural air pollution sources,
                    such as volcanic eruptions and forest fires, produce much more airborne pollutants than
                    all man-made airborne pollutants combined. Although we have no control over volcanic
                    eruptions, perhaps attention should be paid to management of forest fires. In January
                    2003, the United States government proposed steps to prevent wildfires (62).
   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62