Second Sulfur Protocol

The 1994 Protocol on Further Reduction of Sulphur Emissions (Second Sulfur Protocol)... 

Source Second Sulfur Protocol for SO2 2000 ceilings, Gothenberg Multi-Pollutant Protocol for SO2 and NO 2010 ceilings Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution 2005 for emissions data (accessed via http //webdab.emep.int/). Estonia has no commitments under the Second Sulfur Protocol or the Gothenberg Multi-Pollutant Protocol and is not included in the table. 

As a result of domestic activism, Czechoslovakia adopted a Clean Air Act in 1991, which required considerable emission reductions and technical standards of desulfurization from all power plant facilities to be implemented by 1998. By the time of the negotiations of the Second Sulfur Protocol in 1994, the implementation of the 1991 Clean Air Act was already under way in the successor states of Czechoslovakia—the Czech Republic and Slovakia—contributing to significant declines in both sulfur and nitrogen emissions (Eigure 8.2). It is thus no surprise that the Czech Republic as well as Slovakia committed to high levels of emission reductions under the Second Sulfur Protocol, as their domestic legislation demanded similar if not stricter standards. 

Since 1988 a new concept has been agreed both nationally and internationally to try to improve this situation by optimizing costs and benefits. This is the critical loads/levels approach and it has been adopted as the basis for 1994 UN ECE Second Sulfur Dioxide Protocol, which commits signatories to the Convention on LRTAP to further SO2 reductions up to and beyond the year 2005. Action on this Protocol will produce significant reductions in the emissions of SO2 and sulfate deposition over the next decade, till 2005. 

In the last decades, anthropogenic sulfur and nitrogen emissions have been discussed in the context of acid rain (see Ulrich and Sumner, 1991 van Breemen ct al., 1983 Reuss and Johnson, 1986) and this point of view has influenced policy in Europe and North America (e.g., LRTAP UN-ECE Second Sulphur Protocol, Clean Air Act). 

P 68] No detailed experimental protocol was given [61, 62,142,143]. Two reactant streams, the solution of the reactant in hexane and concentrated sulfuric acid, were fed separately in a specially designed micro reactor by pumping action. There, a bilayer was formed initially, potentially decomposed to a dispersion, and led to rapid mass transfer between the phases. From this point, temperature was controlled by counter-flow heat exchange between the reaction channel and surrounding heat-transfer channel. The reaction was typically carried out at temperatures from 0 to 50 °C and using residence times of only a few seconds. If needed, a delay loop of... 

The surfactant, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide, was dissolved in water to obtain a clear solution, in which the first swelling agent (decane) was then added drop by drop with stirring. After ten minutes stirring at room temperature, the second swelling agent (TMB) was introduced. Sodium silicate was added to the obtained micellar solution and the pH value was adjusted with sulfuric acid. The pH value and surfactant/silicium molar ratio was fixed at 10 and 0.62 according to the protocol established previously for conventional MCM-41 synthesis... 

Work is underway to standardize the test method described here as a new ASTM standard. An Inter-Laboratory Study (ILS) is proposed to include at least nine each of gasoline and diesel Tier 2 class materials containing sulfur levels between <10 and 80 mg/kg in gasoline and between <10 and 80 mg/kg in diesels. Some blind National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Standard Reference Materials (SRM) and solvent blanks are also plaimed for the cross check. The ILS will follow a protocol of an initial analysis of a set of samples and solvent blanks, and after an elapsed time of at least 12 h but no more than 72 h, a second set of measurements on the same set of samples and blanks will be completed. We expect this ILS to be completed by the end of2005. 

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