Improving the Monitoring of the Snow Cover for Emission Components from Primary Aluminum Production

Abstract

A study is made of the distribution of fluorine in the snow cover, fluorine being one of the main components of dust-gas emissions from the production of aluminum. Tests were conducted on the basis of snow-chemistry data recorded by the Bratsk Center for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring during the period 2000–2013 and results obtained from an analysis made of the snow cover in the Bratsk region by specialists at IrGTU during 2008–2014. It was established that in order to improve the annual monitoring of emission components in the snow cover, it will be necessary to determine or account for such factors as the changes in the contents of the components in the snow cover in relation to their concentrations in the atmosphere, air temperature during the winter, the amount of atmospheric precipitation, and the distance from the sources of emissions. Determining the content of an element in snow-cover filtrate and in a solid sample of snow from the cover makes it possible to assess the form in which compounds that contain the given element are present in the atmosphere. It is shown that it would be expedient to take annual background concentrations into account in order to evaluate the dynamics of the emissions. The concentrations of 64 elements in the snow-cover filtrate were compared to their concentrations in Baikal water and it was found that the snow cover’s contents of aluminum, thallium, manganese, and gallium 27 km from the factory are at least eight times higher than in the water but are still below the maximum permissible concentrations established for drinking water (no limit has yet been set for gallium).