Emission factor for atmospheric ammonia from a typical municipal wastewater treatment plant in South China

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• 作者：Chunlin Zhang^a ; Xuesong Geng^a ; Hao Wang^b ; ^{hao.wang@uef.fi} ; Lei Zhou^a ; Boguang Wang^a ; ^{tbongue@jnu.edu.cn}
• 关键词：Atmospheric ammonia ; Wastewater treatment plant ; Emission factor ; pH value ; WATER9 model
• 刊名：Environmental Pollution
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：January 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：220
• 期：part_PB
• 页码：963-970
• 全文大小：954 K
• 卷排序：220

文摘

Atmospheric ammonia (NH3), a common alkaline gas found in air, plays a significant role in atmospheric chemistry, such as in the formation of secondary particles. However, large uncertainties remain in the estimation of ammonia emissions from nonagricultural sources, such as wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). In this study, the ammonia emission factors from a large WWTP utilizing three typical biological treatment techniques to process wastewater in South China were calculated using the US EPA's WATER9 model with three years of raw sewage measurements and information about the facility. The individual emission factors calculated were 0.15 ± 0.03, 0.24 ± 0.05, 0.29 ± 0.06, and 0.25 ± 0.05 g NH3 m−3 sewage for the adsorption-biodegradation activated sludge treatment process, the UNITANK process (an upgrade of the sequencing batch reactor activated sludge treatment process), and two slightly different anaerobic-anoxic-oxic treatment processes, respectively. The overall emission factor of the WWTP was 0.24 ± 0.06 g NH3m−3 sewage. The pH of the wastewater influent is likely an important factor affecting ammonia emissions, because higher emission factors existed at higher pH values. Based on the ammonia emission factor generated in this study, sewage treatment accounted for approximately 4% of the ammonia emissions for the urban area of South China's Pearl River Delta (PRD) in 2006, which is much less than the value of 34% estimated in previous studies. To reduce the large uncertainty in the estimation of ammonia emissions in China, more field measurements are required.