title: Tracking hazardous air pollutants from a refinery fire by applying on-line and off-line air monitoring and back trajectory modeling.
abstract: The air monitors used by most regulatory authorities are designed to track the daily emissions of conventional pollutants and are not well suited for measuring hazardous air pollutants that are released from accidents such as refinery fires. By applying a wide variety of air-monitoring systems, including on-line Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, gas chromatography with a flame ionization detector, and off-line gas chromatography-mass spectrometry for measuring hazardous air pollutants during and after a fire at a petrochemical complex in central Taiwan on May 12, 2011, we were able to detect significantly higher levels of combustion-related gaseous and particulate pollutants, refinery-related hydrocarbons, and chlorinated hydrocarbons, such as 1,2-dichloroethane, vinyl chloride monomer, and dichloromethane, inside the complex and 10 km downwind from the fire than those measured during the normal operation periods. Both back trajectories and dispersion models further confirmed that high levels of hazardous air pollutants in the neighboring communities were carried by air mass flown from the 22 plants that were shut down by the fire. This study demonstrates that hazardous air pollutants from industrial accidents can successfully be identified and traced back to their emission sources by applying a timely and comprehensive air-monitoring campaign and back trajectory air flow models.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Occupational Medicine and Industrial Hygiene, College of Public Health, National Taiwan University, Taiwan; Green Energy and Environment Research Laboratories, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Ruei-Hao
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Shie
authors.forename: Chang-Chuan
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Chan
mesh_terms: D000392:Air Movements; D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D019652:Extraction and Processing Industry; D005390:Fires; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; D015386:Hazardous Substances / Q000032:analysis*; D006838:Hydrocarbons / Q000032:analysis*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010578:Petroleum; D017550:Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared; D013624:Taiwan
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D015386:Hazardous Substances; D006838:Hydrocarbons; D010578:Petroleum
keywords: Accident; Fire; Hazardous air pollutants; Petrochemical