Article | REF: G1836 V2

Mass balance of VOC emissions

Author: Pierre Le Cloirec

Publication date: October 10, 2022

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ABSTRACT

Human health, environmental protection and resource conservation naturally lead to minimizing pollution resulting from human activities. In particular, air quality is an important issue. These observations naturally lead to minimizing polluting gaseous emissions and specifically non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOC)... After recalling the current legislation and the procedures of analysis of NMVOCs, this article mainly presents the solvent management plan and the procedure to perform a VOC mass balance of a gaseous emission.

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AUTHOR

  • Pierre Le Cloirec: Professor, Honorary Director of ENSCR Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Rennes, France

 INTRODUCTION

Among the target molecules responsible for air pollution, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have been the focus of particular attention since the early 1990s. Indeed, these molecules, emitted naturally or through human activities – whether domestic, industrial, agricultural or due to transport – have a strong impact on human health and/or an effect on the environment, and in particular on air quality. While some VOCs can cause respiratory illnesses or even cancer in sensitive populations (children, pregnant women, the elderly), or in workers in systematic contact with solvent-laden environments, their photochemical reactivity in the atmosphere has also been demonstrated. They are thus responsible for radical reactions under the effect of sunlight (UV) (leading in particular to the disruption of the Chapman cycle), producing high concentrations of ozone in the troposphere [G 1 700][G 1 835][J 3 928] .

A proactive environmental protection policy has led countries to sign conventions and treaties on air quality and atmospheric pollution. The implementation of these international commitments has resulted in the control and reduction of volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions through legislation on gaseous emissions. European directives setting VOC reduction targets NM (non-methane VOCs) call for France to limit emissions to 901 kt by 2029 and 759 kt by 2039. French regulations (decree of February 2, 1998, amended – last amendment of September 6, 2021) impose both maximum concentrations and mass flows, by compound, in gaseous emissions. To implement a policy of overall VOC minimization on an industrial site, the first essential step is to determine the discharge rates and to identify and quantify the VOCs involved, in other words to carry out a VOC mass balance.

After definitions, a presentation of the overall trend in VOC NM emissions in France and a few regulatory elements, this article proposes, in the case of VOC NM emissions, an approach for carrying out a simple material balance. Two approaches...

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KEYWORDS

COV   |   mass balance   |   solvent management plan   |   gaseous emissions


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Mass balance of VOC emissions