CHAPTER 12 AIR POLLUTION
hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) using a risk-
Air pollution is of public health concern on the
micro, meso, and macro scales
Indoor air pollution results from products used in
construction materials, the inadequacy of general
ventilation
Industrial and mobile sources contribute to
mesoscale air pollution that contaminates the
ambient air that surrounds us outdoors
. Macroscale (or global) effects include transport
of ambient air pollutants over large distances
(acid rain and ozone pollution)
Global effects of air pollution result from sources
that may potentially change the upper
atmosphere
Units
micrograms per cubic meter
parts per million
micromete
An adiabatic process is one that takes place
with no addition or removal of heat
criteria pollutants because they were developed
on health-based criteria
The primary standard was established to protect
human health with an “adequate margin of
safety.”
primary standard was established to protect
human health with an “adequate margin of
safety.” The secondary standards are intended
to prevent environmental and property damage
An AQR that has air quality equal to or better than
the primary standard is called an attainment area
Those areas that do not meet the primary
standard are called nonattainment areas.
to establish a HAP emissions control program
based on technology for 189 chemicals (Table 12–
2). EPA will establish emission allowances based
on maximum achiev- able control technology
(MACT)
the EPA was directed to establish regulations for
based approach
EFFECTS OF AIR POLLUTANTS
Solid particles of large enough size and traveling
at high enough speed can cause deteriora- tion
by abrasion
Indirect chemical attack occurs when pollutants
are absorbed and then react with some compo-
nent of the absorbent to form a destructive
compound
Factors That Influence Deterioration. Moisture,
temperature, sunlight, and position of the
exposed material
Effects on Vegetation
the leaf is the primary indicator of the effects of air
pol- lution on plants
Protoplast is the term used to describe the
protoplasm of one cell
The nucleus contains the hereditary material
(DNA), which controls the operation of the cell
The protoplasm located outside the nucleus is
called cytoplasm
Chloroplasts contain the chlorophyll that
manufactures the plant’s food through
photosynthesis
three primary tissue systems: the epidermis, the
mesophyll, and the vascular bundle (veins).
Pollutant Damage
the formation of red-brown spots that turn white
after a few days. The white spots are called fleck
synergism -combinations of pollutants that alone
cause no damage are known to produce acute
effects when combined
Effects on Health
The respiratory system is the primary indicator of
air pollution effects in humans
The major organs of the respiratory system are
the nose, pharynx, larynx, trachea, bronchi, and
lungs
Chronic Respiratory Disease
Bronchial asthma is a form of airway resistance
that results from an allergy.
Chronic bronchitis is currently defined to be
present in a person when excess mucus in the
bronchioles results in a cough for 3 months a year
for two consecutive years
Pulmonary emphysema is characterized by a
break- down of the alveoli
Cancer of the bronchus (lung cancer) is
characterized by abnormal, disorderly new cell
growth originating in the bronchial mucous
membrane
Carbon Monoxide (CO). This colorless, odorless
gas is lethal to humans within a few minutes at
concentrations exceeding 5000 ppm
ORIGIN AND FATE OF AIR POLLUTANTS
Anthropogenic sources (those associated with
the activities of human beings) include motor
vehicles, fossil fuel burning for electricity and heat,
industrial processes, solid waste disposal, and
miscellaneous burning of such things as leaves
and brush
Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs)
Photolysis is the chemical fragmentation or
rearrangement of a chemical upon the adsorption
of radiation of the appropriate wavelength
not direct emissions from either people or nature;
thus, they are called secondary pollutants
Sulfur oxides may be both primary and secondary
pollutants
Particulates
Sea salt, soil dust, volcanic particles, and smoke
from forest fires account for about 2.9 Pg
(petagrams) of particulate emissions each year
Dust particles that are entrained (picked up) by
the wind and carried over long distances tend to
sort themselves out to the sizes between 0.5 and
50 µm in diameter
Indoor Air Pollution
People who live in cold climates may spend more
than 90% of their time indoors
While mainstream smoking (taking a puff)
exposes the smoker to large quantities of toxic
compounds, the smoldering cigarette in the
ashtray (sidestream smoke) adds a
considerable burden to the room environment
Bacteria, viruses, fungi, mites, and pollen are
collectively referred to as bioaerosols
The solar constant is the average annual in-
tensity of the radiation that is intercepted by the
cross section of a sphere equivalent to the Earth’s
diameter
At the other end of the spectrum, radiatively active
gases that absorb at wavelengths greater than 4
µm are called greenhouse gases
The elliptical lines shown on more detailed
weather maps are lines of constant pressure, or
isobars.
The technical names given to these systems are
anticyclones for highs and cyclones for lows
The swirls thus formed are called eddies
or enhance vertical motion is termed stability
When the atmosphere is classified as unstable,
mechanical turbulence is enhanced by the
thermal structure
A neutral atmosphere is one in which the thermal
structure neither enhances nor resists
mechanical turbulence. When the thermal
structure inhibits mechanical turbulence, the
atmosphere is said to be stable.
Cyclones are associated with unstable air.
Anticyclones are associated with stable air.
If the temperature of the atmosphere falls at a rate
greater than T the lapse rate is said to be
superadiabatic and the atmosphere is unstable
If the temperature of the atmosphere falls at a rate
less than T it is called subadiabatic
The plume rise, together with the physical stack
height, is called the effective stack height.
Mass transfer is a diffusion process wherein the
pollutant gas moves from points of higher
concentration to points of lower concentration
The easiest way to get around this problem is to
run the gas and liquid in opposite directions,
called countercurrent flow
The relation between the amount of pollutant
adsorbed and the equilibrium pressure at
constant temperature is called an adsorption
isotherm
As saturation is approached, pollutant will begin
to leak out of the bed, a process called
breakthrough
In nonregenerative systems the reagent used to
remove the sulfur oxides from the gas stream is
used and discarded
In regenerative systems the reagent is
recovered and reused. In terms of the number
and size of systems installed, nonregenerative
systems dominate.
multiple cyclones in parallel (multiclones).
Fly ash is a generic term used to de- scribe the
particulate matter carried in the effluent gases
from furnaces burning fossil fuels
This resistance to current flow is called the
resistivity of the fly ash.
and a local discharge of current (back corona)
Oxyfuel is yet another alternative. Oxyfuel is one
with more oxygen to allow the fuel to burn more
efficiently
CHAPTER 13 SOLID WASTE WNGINEERING
Solid waste is a generic term used to describe
the things we throw away. It includes objects the
lay audience commonly calls garbage, refuse,
and trash
Solid waste disposal creates a problem primarily
in highly populated areas
CHARACTERISTICS OF SOLID WASTE
Putrescible waste is the animal and vegetable
waste resulting from the handling, prepara- tion,
cooking, and serving of food. It is composed
largely of degradable organic matter and mois-
ture.
Municipal solid waste, commonly known to the
lay audience as garbage, is a subset of solid waste
and is defined as durable goods
“Green chemistry” and “green engineering” are
changing the way engineers design and fabricate.
RECYCLING
Recycling can also be described as closed-loop or
open-loop.
Closed-loop, or primary, recycling is the use of
recycled products to make the same or similar
products.
Secondary recycling is the use of recycled
materials to make new products with different
characteristics than the originals
Tertiary recycling is the recovery of chemicals
or energy from postconsumer waste materials.
Composting is the controlled decomposition of
organic materials, such as leaves, grass, and food
scraps, by microorganisms.
Refuse-derived fuel (RDF) is the combustible
portion of solid waste that has been separated
from the noncombustible portion through
processes such as shredding, screening, and air
classifying
Modular incinerators are usually prefabricated
units with capac- ities of 4.5 to 107 tonnes of solid
waste per day
In a fluidized bed incinerator, sand is heated to
about 800◦C by oil or gas
Pyrolysis is the thermal processing of a material
in the absence of oxygen
Gasification is the partial combustion in which a
fuel is burned with less than a stoichiometric
amount of oxygen
A sanitary land- fill is a land disposal site
employing an engineered method of disposing of
solid wastes on land in a manner that minimizes
environmental hazards by spreading the solid
wastes to the smallest practical volume,
OPERATION
The most commonly used method of operation at
sanitary landfills is called the area method
In the area method, the solid waste is deposited on
the surface, compacted, then covered with a layer
of compacted soil, called the daily cover
The waste and daily cover placed in a landfill
during one operational period form a cell
The waste is dumped by the collection and
transfer vehicles onto the working face
.A lift may refer to the placement of a layer of
waste or the completion of the horizontal active
area of the landfill
The first lift is called a fluffy lift because the
waste is not compacted until 2 m of waste is
deposited
Benches are used where the height of the landfill
exceeds 15–20 m.
Final cover is applied to the entire landfill site
after all landfilling operations are complete
Leachate, liquid that passes through the landfill,
extracts dissolved and suspended matter from
the waste material.
The quantity of water that can be held against the
pull of gravity is referred to as field capacity
CONTROL OF LEACHATE
The specified liner system includes a synthetic
membrane (geomembrane) at least 30 mils
METHANE AND GAS PRODUCTION
Landfill gas (LFG) collection systems can be
active or passive.
Active systems provide a pressure gradient to
force the gas from the cells
Passive systems allow a natural pressure
gradient to build up, which causes the gas to
move from the cells into the collection devices.
CHAPTER 15 NOISE POLLUTION
Noise, commonly defined as unwanted sound, is
an environmental phenomenon to which we are
exposed before birth and throughout life
). The wave pattern is called sinusoidal.
The time between successive peaks or between
successive troughs of the oscillation is called the
period (P)
The inverse of this, that is, the number of times a
peak arrives in one second of oscillations, is called
the frequency
The distance between adjacent crests or troughs
of pressure is called the wavelength (h).
The amplitude (A) of the wave is the height of the
peak or depth of the trough measured from the
zero-pressure line
The root mean square (rms) sound pressure (
prms) is used to overcome this difficulty.
SOUND POWER AND INTENSITY
Work is defined as the product of the magnitude
of the displacement of a body and the compo-
nent of force in the direction of the displacement
The rate at which this work is done is defined as
the sound power (W ).
Sound intensity (I ) is the time-weighted average
sound power per unit area normal to the direction
of propagation of the sound wave
A bel turns out to be a rather large unit, so for
convenience it is divided into 10 subunits called
decibels
Weighting networks are elec- tronic filtering
circuits built into the meter to attenuate certain
frequencies
Auditory effects include both hearing loss and
speech interference.
Psychological–sociological effects include
annoyance, sleep interference, effects on
performance, and acoustical privacy
The sound transducer mechanism is housed in
the middle ear.* It consists of the tympanic
membrane (eardrum) and three ossicles
(bones)
The auditory receptors are in the cochlea, a bone
shaped like a snail coiled two and one-half times
around its own axis
MEASUREMENT of fibrous or porous materials, which absorb the
sound
The increased sound pressure level required to
achieve a new HTL is called threshold shift A reactive muffler is one whose noise reduction
is determined mainly by geometry. It is shaped to
Temporary threshold shift (TTS) is reflect or expand the sound waves with resultant
distinguished from permanent threshold shift self-destruction
(PTS) by the fact that in TTS removal of the noise
over stimulation will result in a gradual return to Noise, like light, will bounce from one hard
baseline hearing thresholds surface to another. In noise control work, this is
called reverberation
The permanent hearing loss that results from very
brief exposure to a very loud noise is termed
acoustic trauma

DAMAGE-RISK CRITERIA

A damage-risk criterion specifies the maximum

allowable exposure to which a person may be
exposed if risk of hearing impairment is to be
avoided

hearing impairment as an average HTL in

excess of 25 dB (ANSI1969) at 500, 1000, and
2000 Hz. This is called the low fence. Total
impairment is said to occur when the average
HTLexceeds 92 dB.

One noise of special interest with respect to

annoyance is called sonic boom or, more
correctly as we shall see, sonic booms

The flow of air around an aircraft or other object

whose speed exceeds the speed of sound
(supersonic) is characterized by the existence of
discontinuities in the air known as shock wave

RADIATION FIELD OF A SOUND SOURCE

At locations close to the source, the near field,

the particle velocity is not in phase with the sound
pressure

the location of the sound measurement is said to

be in the far field

DIRECTIVITY

The directivity factor is the numerical measure of

the directivity of a sound source

In logarithmic form the directivity factor is called

the directivity index

An absorptive muffler is one whose noise

reduction is determined mainly by the presence
\
\