Atmospheric behaviour of oil-shale combustion fly ash in a chamber study

There are huge world deposits of oil shale, however, little is known about the fate of atmospheric oil-shale combustion fly ash. In the present work, oil-shale combustion fly-ash aerosol was investigated under simulated daytime and nighttime conditions. Fly-ash particles collected from the Baltic Power Plant (Estonia) were injected directly to a 190 m 3 outdoor Teflon film chamber. The initial concentration of particles was in the range from 15 to 20 mg/m 3. Particle size distributions were monitored continuously by various optical and electrical devices. During the course of an experiment the particle phase was collected on filters, and the gas phase was collected using denuders. The initial aerosol mass concentration decreased quickly due to the deposition of larger particles. Since fine particles dominated the count distribution, the change in aerosol number concentration was less significiant than the mass concentration over time. Experimental data showed a bimodal particle size distribution with maximums at about 0.07 and 4 μm. SEM images of aerosol particles also provided particle shape and size distribution information. The respirable fraction of particles, which contributes most to the health effects of the aerosol, significantly increased during the experiment, being 25% by mass immediately after the injection of fly ash and achieving 65% at the end of the experiment. Results of CG/MS analysis confirm the presence of different polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the particle phase of the aerosol. Some of the individual compounds included phenanthrene, fluoranthene, pyrene, benz(a)anthracene, chrysene, benzo(b)fluoranthene, benzo(k)fluoranthene, and benzo(a)pyrene. Several PAHs were found in the gas phase of the chamber after fly ash had aged for 2 h, indicating that PAHs desorbed from the particles over time.