Technical Bulletin No. 0049: Airborne Sampling of Gaseous Sulfur and Particulate Emissions from Kraft Pulp Mills (AQTB)

The attached Technical Bulletin is based on a graduate investigation conducted by M. L. Tuggle a National Council Fellow working under the direction of Professor Roy 0. McCaldin in the Department of Bioenvironmental Engineering at the University of Florida, with assistance from Leon Duncan and Thomas Tucker of the National Council's Southern Regional Center's staff. It represents one of a growing number of efforts to develop and apply airborne instrumentation for the study of downwind dispersion phenomena. The methodology for such studies is today in its infancy, with only limited above ground level monitoring being conducted using fixed position tower mounted or balloon supported samplers. Use of small aircraft would appear to hold out great promise for studies designed to verify meteorological dispersion formulations, and to establish the role of particulates in downwind transport and reactions of odorous gaseous components. The present study employed a particle counter and coulometric bromine titrator for measuring changes in plume concentration of kraft mill particulates and gaseous oxidizable sulfur. It indicated that the instrumentation used in this study was not wholly adequate for such work, although partial correction for slow response time was achieved through laboratory simulation of airborne sampling patterns. Since the rational design of atmospheric emission control programs continues to be in part dependent on a knowledge of downwind dispersion phenomena, it is hoped that this study will foster further efforts to perfect methodology for such airborne monitoring studies.