CEM - Abstract

Abstract Information :

Particulate matter (PM) monitoring continues to grow as a compliance monitoring requirement around the world, but it is also being used as a process tool. But getting a good representative monitoring location is critical to having good results. Through a combination of knowledge gained from previous employments, where solids were produced and handled, and what B3 Systems observes almost weekly at numerous PM CEMS applications, we started developing questions about what we were observing.

Why were large percentages (>80%) of PM showing up in the probe of them annual sampling methods?
Why were some PM monitors response changing with load or production changes while other were not?
Why do some PM monitors not respond to changes in PM Spiking when the Reference Method does?

These questions led to the realization that PM being transported through ducts, stacks and even the manual sampling trains is just simply lean-phase pneumatic transport. We started to study different research papers on PM transport through elbows and turns and found that it help explain the answers to our questions.

To explain some of the answers to our questions and to help end-users understand the care need for good PM monitoring, this paper will present information from several detailed research papers on PM transport. We will also provide results from some in-house testing since no large scale testing has been completed at the time of this writing.

Over the years it has been said that really small PM "acts" like a gas. The result of researching PM transport also revealed that this is not correct. This paper will present information to shows that PM never acts like a gas.