Emission characteristics of volatile organic compounds from industrial and stationary combustion sources in the Ili River Valley core area, China

Abstract

One hundred and fifteen types of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), mass concentrations, composition profiles, and emission factors (EFs) for industrial processes and stationary combustion sources in the core area of the Ili River Valley were investigated using the GC-MS analytical method. This is of great significance for VOC emissions in northwest China. The results show that benzene (25.5%), ethylene (20.8%), 2-butanone (11.3%) and tetrahydrofuran (10.2%) were the most abundant species in the coal-based synthetic natural gas (SNG) industry. Oxygenated VOCs (OVOCs) were the most important chemical group in the pharmaceutical manufacturing (PM) and the manufacture of other condiments and fermented products (MOCFP). Acetaldehyde, acetone and 2-butanone are the tracers for these two industries. Acetylene and vinyl chloride accounted for 84.3% of the weighted share of emissions from polyvinyl chloride synthetic resin (SYR). M/p-xylene, 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene, toluene, acetylene, and o-xylene accounted for 31.7% of the total VOC species in stationary combustion. Two SNG plants have the highest VOC emissions with 2804.5 and 559.8 t/a respectively. PM is the second largest VOCs emitting industry (218.5 t/a), with acetone being the most abundant species. The EF of PM was the largest (13.54 g/kg product), and the EFs of SNG, SYR, and MOCFP were 0.48, 0.145, and 0.45 g/kg product, respectively. The VOC EF of stationary combustion was the lowest (2.12E-05 g/kg coal). However, the average source reactivity (SR) was highest for stationary combustion and SNG. OVOCs, aromatics and alkenes were the main VOC groups to be prioritised for ozone pollution control.