AQE 2021 Emissions (virtual) Conference

The AQE 2021 two-day Emissions Monitoring conference will take place on the 13th and 14th October and focus on the latest issues relating to industrial emissions to air. The 2021 conference will focus on the measurement of low concentration emissions, biogenic carbon measurement, and mercury monitoring.

Low emissions… a positive problem
As emissions reduction techniques become more effective and more widely adopted, and emissions regulations become tighter, the challenge for the emissions monitoring community is to be able to monitor pollutants at ever lower concentrations, accurately and reliably, in order to demonstrate compliance.

The opening presentation will set the scene by describing the current international regulatory framework; summarising the current emissions reduction challenges and outlining the latest regulatory changes that have been implemented to meet these challenges.

The UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) will deliver a presentation on measurement uncertainty - a key issue for regulators, process operators and test laboratories. In particular, the presentation will address the performance of current reference methods at low emission concentrations since these reference methods are used to calibrate AMS. This is becoming a growing issue as regulations demand ever tighter emissions control, while abatement methods become more efficient, and monitoring technologies and methods become more sensitive.

David Graham, a technical consultant with Uniper, will address the general EN 14181 quality assurance issues associated with the continuous emissions monitoring of gaseous and particulate pollutants at low concentration levels. The speaker will describe how these issues relate to the three Quality Assurance Levels: QAL1 (Certification); QAL2 (Calibration) and QAL3 (Control), as well as the Annual Surveillance Test (AST).

With a focus on particulate monitoring, the next presentation will discuss the monitoring of low particulate levels and the influences that particulate matter characteristics can have on automated measuring system (AMS) responses. The speaker will also address the potential technical issues arising when applying the Standard Reference Methods EN 13284-1 and EN 13284-2.

During QAL2 and AST testing for HCl monitoring, it is often difficult to obtain good agreement between test laboratory results and an installed AMS.  Andy Tiffen from Socotec will therefore discuss the known issues surrounding both SRM (Standard Reference Method) testing including best practice for test laboratories performing HCl testing, and the potential pitfalls for CEM systems (AMS). Suggestions will be provided for ways in which the results of EN 14181 calibrations can be improved.  This talk will also highlight additional areas of concern that require further research.

New continuous monitoring technologies, with superior sensitivity, better discrimination between gaseous components, and improved accuracy at low concentration levels, are able to rise to the challenge of measuring very low concentration levels, when suitably certified. 

The application of OFCEAS (Optical Feedback Cavity Enhanced Absorption Spectroscopy) with Low Pressure sampling will be described. This technique is able to achieve very low levels of detection, with measurement ranges from parts per billion to percentage levels for standard gas species such as NOx, SO2, CO, CO2, H2O as well as gases of growing interest such as HCHO, H2S, HCl, CH4 and NH3. 

Concluding the first day, Yves Tondeur (as a member of the US Source Evaluation Society) will provide a laboratory analytical perspective on the TEQ (Toxic Equivalent) representation of low concentration measurements of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs, also referred to as dioxins) to ambient air. The speaker will describe the application of this work to the measurement of emissions from waste incineration, and explain why this is becoming an important issue in relation to the Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) Standards.

Registration is free for AQE 2021, your attendee pass will give you free access to all conference and technical presentations, you will also be able to network and link into other attendees, speakers and over 150 exhibitors who will be providing instruments and services for Air Quality and emission monitoring. Your free pass will also give you access to WWEM the Water Monitoring event which will be running alongside AQE.