Development of environmental measures to reduce the dusty emissions of stone coal in loading and unloading works

Now Russia is one of the worlds leading coal producers. Particles inevitably pass into an aerosol state, forming dust, which is subsequently emitted into the atmosphere during the extraction, crushing, sorting and transportation of coal. This dust negatively affects the health of workers in the mining industry, as well as the population of the residential area. In this regard, the question arises about the effective air cleaning in the working area from coal dust and reducing its concentration. The work purpose is to develop a comprehensive cleaning of gas-air emissions from coal dust in the working area where it is transported. The main task is to create an additional degree of air purification from coal dust. For this purpose, a vortex absorber was used, which is a cylindrical apparatus in which a contact element with perforated holes is located. The geometric dimensions of the absorber and its main parameters have been determined. The absorber developed by the authors has shown very good results as a device for the final purification of gas-air emissions. The efficiency of trapping small solid particles in the presented scheme reaches 99%. At the same time, as a result of the introduction of this installation, effective air purification from dust particles with a diameter of about 0.2 microns is carried out and the coal briquettes production is increased by 144 tons per year.

Biological Potentiality to Remove Organic Solvents From Exhausted Air Emissions

The performance of an industrial prototype of a biological system was investigated during more than two years, for the treatment of exhaust gas from air emission of wooden painting activities. Two different type of VOCs mixture were treated at different weather conditions. Removal efficiencies were sufficiently high to maintain the outlet emissions within the legal thresholds. Particularly low costs for management were experienced, confirming the biofiltration a sustainable technology.

Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Gasification and Landfilling for Disposal of Municipal Solid Wastes

Disposal of municipal solid wastes (MSW) remains a challenge to minimize its impacts on the environment and human health. Landfilling, currently the most common method used for MSW disposal, occupies land space and leads to soil and air emissions. Gasification, an alternative MSW disposal method, can convert waste to energy, but can also lead to soil and air emissions and is a more extensive operation. In this study, life cycle assessments (LCA) of the two disposal methods (landfilling without energy recovery and gasification) were compared to understand impacts on environment and health. The LCA was conducted following the ISO 14040 standards with one ton of MSW as the functional unit. The life cycle inventory was obtained from published journals, technical reports, LandGEM, HELP and GREET database. The impact assessment was done using TRACI 2.1 and categorized into eight groups. The LCA revealed that landfilling is a higher contributor in global warming, acidification, smog formation, eutrophication, ecotoxicity and human health cancer and non-cancer categories. The negative environmental impacts of MSW landfilling can be primarily attributed to the fate of leachate loss and landfill gas, while those of the MSW gasification can be attributed to the disposal of its solid residues.

The Role of Climate Control in Monogastric Animal Farming: The Effects on Animal Welfare, Air Emissions, Productivity, Health, and Energy Use

In the last decades, an engineering process has deeply transformed livestock houses by introducing fine-tuned climate control systems to guarantee adequate indoor climate conditions needed to express the maximum genetic potential of animals and to increase their productivity. Climate control, hence, has strong relation with productivity but also with other livestock production domains, outlining a web of mutual relations between them. The objective of this work is to understand the actual role of climate control in intensive livestock houses by unpicking this web of mutual relations through a literature review. The results show that climate control plays a key role in intensive livestock houses since it has strong relations with animal welfare, air emissions, productivity, health, and energy use. These relations make it essential to adopt an integrated approach for the assessment of the effectiveness of any proposed improvement in the different domains of livestock production. This is especially true considering aspects such as the expected increase of livestock production in developing countries and global warming. For this purpose, integrated climate control models of livestock houses are needed, representing a challenging opportunity for performing investigations in this research field.

A Novel Hybrid Life Cycle Assessment Approach to Air Emissions and Human Health Impacts of Liquefied Natural Gas Supply Chain

Global interest in LNG products and supply chains is growing, and demand continues to rise. As a clean energy source, LNG can nevertheless emit air pollutants, albeit at a lower level than transitional energy sources. An LNG plant capable of producing up to 126 MMTA was successfully developed and simulated in this study. A hybrid life cycle assessment model was developed to examine the social and human health impacts of the LNG supply chain’s environmental air emission formation. The Multiregional Input–Output (MRIO) database, the Aspen HYSYS model, and the LNG Maritime Transportation Emission Quantification Tool are the key sources of information for this extensive novel study. We began our research by grouping environmental emissions sources according to the participation of each stage in the supply chain. The MDEA Sweetening plant, LNG loading (export terminal), and LNG transportation stages were discovered to have the maximum air emissions. The midpoint air emissions data estimated each stage’s CO2-eq, NOx-eq, and PM2.5-eq emissions per unit LNG generated. According to the midpoint analysis results, the LNG loading terminal has the most considerable normalized CO2-eq and NOx-eq emission contribution across all LNG supply chain stages. Furthermore, the most incredible intensity value for normalized PM2.5-eq was recorded in the SRU and TGTU units. Following the midpoint results, the social human health impact findings were calculated using ReCiPe 2016 characterization factors to quantify the daily loss of life associated with the LNG process chain. SRU and TGTU units have the most significant social human health impact, followed by LNG loading (export terminal) with about 7409.0 and 1203.9 (DALY/million Ton LNG produced annually), respectively. Natural gas extraction and NGL recovery and fractionation units are the lowest for social human health consequences.

Life Cycle Air Emissions and Social Human Health Impact Assessment of Liquified Natural Gas Maritime Transport

Air pollution, which causes over seven million deaths per year, is the most significant and specifically related to health impacts. Nearly 90% of the urban population worldwide is exposed to pollution not meeting the World Health Organization guidelines for air quality. Many atmospheric carbon oxides, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter emitting sources, such as inefficient energy and polluting transportation, directly impact health. Natural gas maritime transport from various parts of the world (carbon supplied to consuming areas) has become more critical. Natural gas liquefaction offers a cleaner and more efficient transportation option and also increases its storage capacity. It is expected that natural gas will reduce the human health impact compared with other traditional fuels consumed. This research establishes a life cycle assessment model of air emission and social human health impact related to LNG maritime transport to investigate the impact of each type of fuel used for the numerous maritime carriers. In order to build a model for air emissions and social human health impact assessments based on hypotheses on various unknown criteria, a calculation model is used. The results revealed Conventional-2 fuel type has the lowest human health impact for annual mode calculations, followed by Conventional-1, Q-Max, and finally Q-Flex. The analysis method for the per year demonstrated discrepancies in the relative human health impact due to the variation of the annual LNG demand by each destination and not only per the trip needs. The results show the importance of using a relatively cleaner fuel type such as Conventional-2 in reducing the health impact of LNG maritime transportation. Moreover, it shows differences in the air emissions as well as the human health impact based on the destination’s location and annual LNG demand.

Activities undertaken by Polish manufacturing companies to reduce air emissions

The emphasis on the need to balance the relations between the economy and the natural environment has been growing in recent years. For individual enterprises, it means considering the environmental protection issues in their activities and switching to environmentally-friendly business practices. The purpose of this paper is to present the activities undertaken and performed by Polish manufacturing companies participating in the European Union Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) to reduce emissions of contaminants to air and an attempt to determine solutions that could serve as good environmental practices in this aspect. The grounds for the assumed research method were the analysis of secondary sources in the form of environmental statements. Environmental statements were downloaded from the EMAS website. The selection of the sample was targeted, the study was complete and included 13 manufacturing companies from Poland participating in EMAS, according to the register as of February 18, 2021. The findings indicate that Polish enterprises most frequently performed activities that involved using or improvement of technologies to reduce air emissions and implementation of monitoring and emissions measurement systems. The implemented or improved technologies mostly focused on limiting hard coal usage and replacing it with other energy sources, e.g., liquid gas, earth gas, or renewable energy sources. Analyzed enterprises also performed activities with the purpose of process containment, improvement of offered products, or reducing transport-related emissions.