Chaulya, S.K. and Chakraborty, M. K. and Ahmad, Mobin and Singh, R.S. and Bandopadhyay, C. and Mondal, G.C. (2002) DEVELOPMENT OF EMPIRICAL FORMULAE TO DETERMINE EMISSION RATE FROM VARIOUS OPENCAST COALMINING OPERATIONS. Water, Air and Soil Pollution , 140. pp. 21-55. ISSN 0049-6979

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Abstract

All major mining activities, particularly opencast coal mining, directly or indirectly contribute to the problem of air pollution. Therefore, air quality assessment and prediction are required to prevent and minimize the air quality deterioration due to various opencast coal mining operations. Determination of emission rates for these activities is the first and foremost concern. In view of the above, this study was undertaken to determinate emission rates and to develop emperical formulae to calculate emission rates of various opencast coal mining activities. To achieve the objectives, seven coal mining sites were selected to generate site-specific emission data by considering mining practices, method of working, geographical location, accessibility and above all resource availability. The study covers various mining activities and locations including drilling, overburden loading and unloading, coal loading and unloading, the coal handling plant, the exposed overburden dump, the stock yard, the workshop, the exposed pit surface roads and haul roads. Based on the study, a set of twelve emperical formulae have been developed for calculation of suspended particulate matter (SPM) emission rates from various opencast coal mining activities. The emission of gaseous pollutants (sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide) has been found negligible for various mining activities. Therefore, observation for gaseous pollutants has been considered for overall mine activities and empirical formulae have subsequently been developed. The developed empirical formulae were calculated by a field study at another coal mine. The measured and calculated values of emission rate were compared for each activity. Average correlation between the measured and calculated values for different activities was estimated to be 85.6–99.9%, which indicates fairly good accuracy. Validation of the study was also carried out by means of the fugitive dust model (FDM) using the calculated emission rate data from the empirical formulae for each mining activity of a mine, meteorological data and other details as input. The average accuracy between measured and predicted values of concentration of SPM at certain receptor locations was found to be 79%. A user-friendly emission software called ‘EmissCalc’ was developed to calculate emission rate, which can be used as input for different air quality models.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	air pollution, dispersion modelling, emission rate, opencast coal mine
Subjects:	Instrumentation
Divisions:	UNSPECIFIED
Depositing User:	Dr. Satyendra Kumar Singh
Date Deposited:	26 Nov 2011 05:11
Last Modified:	26 Nov 2011 05:11
URI:	http://cimfr.csircentral.net/id/eprint/133

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