Technical Bulletin No. 0067: Comparison of Source Particulate Emission Measurement Methods at Kraft Recovery Furnace Stacks (AQTB)

The attached technical bulletin was prepared by Rodney Schmall, Research Engineer at the National Council's West Coast Regional Center, and is based on field investigations conducted by him and Andrew J. Kutyna, Research Engineer, Southern Regional Center. The studies described herein were initiated in response to member mill representatives' requests for information on suitable procedures for measuring source particulate matter emissions in the pulp and paper industry. The field investigations described in this technical bulletin were confined to the measurement of particulate matter emissions from those kraft recovery furnace systems where flue gas temperature is kept well above the moisture dew point but where SO2 concentrations may exist from less than 50 ppm to as much as several hundred ppm. The source particulate sampling and analysis procedures chosen for comparison on this source were (a) an external to the stack filtration method in which the gas is cooled from approximately 400°F at these sources to between 250° and 290°F before filtration, which is commonly referred to as the EPA method, and (b) an in-stack filtration method which collects particulate matter on the same glass fibre filtration media used in the EPA source particulate matter measurement procedure, but with the filter temperature maintained at stack temperature, or well above the dew point of sulfur trioxide. The investigation demonstrated that the simpler in-stack filtration procedure is in fact a suitable alternate for the filtration section of the EPA particulate sampling procedure at those sources whose stack gas temperature is well above the moisture dew point.