Technical Bulletin No. 0016: Survey of Kraft Mill Gaseous Emissions Using Gas Chromatographic Techniques (AQTB)

The attached bulletin presents the results of an extensive survey of gaseous emissions conducted at nine Pacific Northwest kraft mills by the National Council research project at Washington State University. The study was for the purposes of evaluating gas chromatographic sampling and analytical techniques developed by the project and attempting to define the ranges of emissions from typical operations and various pollution abatement processes used in the industry. It must be emphasized that this bulletin is in the nature of a progress report on work directed towards development of techniques for kraft mill air pollution studies. Due to the variation encountered in concentration and composition of effluents from mill to mill - often on the same process at a given mill - no attempt has been made to assign average unit loadings of contaminants for given processes. Despite these limitations, the survey is a significant research contribution in the field of kraft mill atmospheric pollution. It illustrates the extreme variability of the gases discharged which complicates treatment but also gives evidence to indicate the effectiveness of various abatement procedures used in the industry to reduce objectionable missions. It is expected that the major contribution of the work will be to stimulate mills concerned with the problem to conduct studies seeking to further define the nature and amounts of contaminants emitted from the kraft process under various operating conditions.