Environmental pollution sulfur dioxide

Haider SS, Hasan M. 1984. Neurochemical changes by inhalation of environmental pollutants sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide Degradation of total lipids, elevation of lipid peroxidation and enzyme activity in discrete regions of the guinea pig brain and spinal cord. Ind Health 22 23-31. 

The definition of environmental chemistry given above is illustrated for a typical environmental pollutant in Figure 2.3. Pollutant sulfur dioxide is generated in the anthrosphere by combustion of sulfur in coal, which has been extracted from the geosphere. The S02 is transported to the atmosphere with flue gas and oxidized by chemical and photochemical processes in the atmosphere to sulfuric acid. The sulfuric acid, in turn, falls as acidic precipitation, where it may have detrimental effects, such as toxic effects, on trees and other plants in the biosphere. Eventually the sulfuric acid is carried by stream runoff in the hydrosphere to a lake or ocean, where its ultimate fate is to be stored in solution in the water or precipitated as solid sulfates and returned to the geosphere. 

We must be able to hold a range of scenarios with regard to each possible application. Advanced fossil-fuel technologies, especially coal-based ones, must be able to meet increasingly stringent environmental requirements for critical air pollutants (sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen), as well as other environmental issues (such as liquid and solid waste), and still remain cost competitive with other fossil fuels, especially natural gas [73]. 

FIGU RE 1.1 Illustration of the definition of environmental chemistry exemplified by the life cycle of a typical pollutant, sulfur dioxide. Sulfur present in fuel, almost always coal, is oxidized to gaseous sulfur dioxide, which is emitted to the atmosphere with stack gas. Sulfur dioxide is an air pollutant that may affect human respiration and may be phytotoxic (toxic to plants). Of greater importance is the oxidation of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere to sulfuric acid, the main ingredient of acid rain. Acidic precipitation may adversely affect plants, materials, and water, where excessive acidity may kill fish. Eventually, the sulfuric acid or sulfate salts end up in water or in soil. 

Air Pollution. Particulates and sulfur dioxide emissions from commercial oil shale operations would require proper control technology. Compliance monitoring carried out at the Unocal Parachute Creek Project for respirable particulates, oxides of nitrogen, and sulfur dioxide from 1986 to 1990 indicate a +99% reduction in sulfur emissions at the retort and shale oil upgrading faciUties. No violations for unauthorized air emissions were issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during this time (62). 

For any pollutant, air quality criteria may refer to different types of effects. For example. Tables 22-1 through 22-6 list effects on humans, animals, vegetation, materials, and the atmosphere caused by various exposures to sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone, and lead. These data are from fhe Air Quality Criteria for these pollutants published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 

Implementation of cleaner production processes and pollution prevention measures can yield both economic and environmental benefits. The following production-related targets can be achieved by measures such as those described above. The numbers relate to the production processes before the addition of pollution control measures. In sulfuric acid plants that use the double-contact, double absorption process, emissions levels of 2 to 4 kilograms of sulfur dioxide... 

Power plant emissions result from the comhustion of fossil fuels such as coal, gas, and oil. These emissions include sulfur dioxide (SO,), nitrogen oxides (NO.,), particulate matter, and hazardous air pollutants, all of which are subject to environmental regulations. Another emission is carbon dioxide (CO,), suspected of being responsible for global warming. 

Deputy Surgeon General L. H. Gehrig spoke frankly Some maintain that a large segment of the population is already perilously close to the threshold of lead toxicity as a result of environmental exposure others take an almost diametrically opposed position. He also conceded that across the entire range of environmental health problems, we are making a rather belated start. Until the conference, the USPHS had focused on hydrocarbons and sulfur dioxide and rarely referred to tetraethyl lead as a pollution problem. 

Scale formation in the scrubber can lead to sodium carbonate as an additional dry sorbent in the scrubber. Alternatively, limestone is also introduced into combustion chambers to treat sulfur dioxide emissions. Decomposition of CaC03 into CaO and CO2 occurs in the combustion chamber, and the resulting CaO combines with S02 to produce calcium sulfite. Notice that this process produced another potentially environmentally harmful pollutant (CO2) as it gets rid of a definite environmentally harmful pollutant (SO2). 

Criteria air pollutants air pollutants or classes of pollutants regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency the air pollutants are (including VOCs) ozone, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and lead. 

Mulik, J. D., Todd, G Estes, E., Puckett, R Sawicki, E., Ion Chromatographic Determination of Atmospheric Sulfur Dioxide. Ion Chromatographic Analysis of Environmental Pollutants. Edited by Sawicki, E., Mulik, f. D., Wittgenstein, E., Ann Arbor Science Publishers, Ann Arbor, MI (1978). 

---