CEM - Abstract

Abstract Information :

According to a report published earlier in the year 2015 by the World Health Organisation, air pollution now kills approximately seven million people annually, worldwide. This accounts for as much as one in eight deaths, and is by far the single biggest environmental health risk. Thus, air pollution, emissions regulations and air quality monitoring in ambient and at source has been gaining importance in the recent past and will continue to rise in the coming days.

With the advent of Continuous Emissions Monitoring (CEM), the task of keeping an eye on the air emissions has become easy but at the same time complex too. CEM involves many activities for determining and reporting emissions from stationery sources. The major industrial units like Cement Plants, Power Plants, Steel Plants, and Incinerators etc. are required to monitor and report emissions on a regular basis. This emissions data can provide a real time continuous record which can be used for a variety of purposes.

The Environmental regulators worldwide have set and will continue to set Ambient Air Quality Standards that are incredibly low for certain air pollutants. Incredibly low ambient air standards equate to incredibly low emissions limits for emission units that may contribute regulated pollutants to the ambient air. Sometimes, sources are required to demonstrate compliance with these incredibly low emission limits, and the test methods commonly used to demonstrate compliance are not sensitive enough to do so in many cases.

Thus, vendors that provide the Continuous Emissions Monitoring System (CEMS) will be challenged with ensuring that they have ways to meet standards, and the onus will be largely on them to do so. As this evolution continues, finding ways to prove that emission rates are correspondingly low will be more and more of a challenge.

If the compliance or environmental monitoring involves less common or some specific pollutants, new methods, and smaller amounts of pollutants, CEMS vendors will have an opportunity to differentiate themselves from one another, and industries will have to be more careful with the suppliers they choose. Emission Regulations and Future Monitoring Challenges - Chirag Bhimani Page 2 of 2 For example, if a source must determine mercury emissions (a much less common pollutant), using a relatively new method, on a process that involves some exotic new way of combusting biomass (which is another unknown) and the compliance line is drawn at a few parts per trillion which would be at the edge of what the existing method can do, would be a real challenge in the days to come.

Conclusion :
Thus, it is imminent that the emissions regulations are going to be stringent and incredibly low for certain air pollutants for better control and improved overall air quality. This in turn will pose a challenge for the existing emissions monitoring methods and systems to ensure that they have ways to monitor (which requires more precise, sensitive and accurate measurement and at times new and innovative technology and methodology for lower thresholds) and show that the industrial emissions meet the standards. And hence, these challenges will do is to render CEMS to be less of a commodity and more of a value-driven service.