Abstract
ABSTRACT
Significant quantities of volatile organic materials stored in surface impoundments can escape into the air boundary layer above. Proper design and operation procedures can result in significantly reduced emissions of hazardous volatile species to the surrounding air.
Floating immiscible organic liquids (eg. mineral oil, lauryl alcohol, octanol) seem to bring about efficient reductions in VOC air emissions both under windy conditions as well as low wind conditions. For no-wind conditions the oil cover seems to retard the escape of chemicals with low oil solubility (low partition coefficients) while for windy conditions the organic liquid acts as a competitive solvent phase and retards the escape of high solubility chemicals (high partition coefficients). The qualitative predictions of the models are confirmed. Pilot Scale experiments using a no-wind simulator and a wind tunnel/water tank are reported. Significant reductions of even up to 85% were observed for certain volatiles under both conditions.
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