Results of the September 1997 DOE/EPA demonstration of multimetal continuous emission monitoring technologies

Abstract

In September 1997, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) co-sponsored a demonstration of several multimetal continuous emission monitors (CEMs). The demonstration, performed at the EPA National Risk Management Research Laboratory, Air Pollution Prevention and Control Division's combustion laboratory in Research Triangle Park, NC, involved the side-by-side testing of seven multimetal CEMs at various stages of commercialization. A series of tests were performed to compare results from the multimetal CEMs to Method 0060, the EPA reference method (RM) for metals emission measurements, using the relative accuracy test audit (RATA) protocol. The EPA operated the test facility and performed the RM sampling, and each multimetal CEM was operated by the instrument's respective developer. To accomplish these tests, an aqueous solution of six toxic metals (arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, lead, and mercury), along with flyash from a coal-fired utility boiler, was injected into the afterburner of the EPAs rotary kiln incinerator simulator facility to generate a combustor flue gas with realistic post-flue gas cleaning system particulate loadings and target metals concentrations of approximately 15 and 75 μg/m 3, which constituted the low and high concentration test conditions. The multimetal CEMs that participated in the test included two laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) systems, two inductively coupled plasma (ICP) systems, a spark-induced breakdown spectroscopy (SIBS) system, a hazardous element sampling train with X-ray fluorescence (HEST/XRF), and a microwave plasma system. Ten RM-CEM sample pairs were taken at both the low and high concentration test conditions, and the relative accuracies of the multimetal CEMs were calculated. This test provided performance data that will be used to assess the current state of the art in multimetal CEMs.