student Chungbuk National University Cheongju-si, Ch'ungch'ong-bukto, Republic of Korea
PM2.5 is emitted from coal-fired power plants in two forms: filterable particulate matter (FPM) and condensable particulate matter (CPM). The FPM is emitted from the stack in a particulate form, whereas the CPM is emitted from the stack in a gaseous form and then converted to the particulate form in the atmosphere. The recent studies have shown that CPM emission is larger than FPM emission from coal-fired power plants. We investigated the characteristics of CPM emitted coal combustion using a laboratory-scale coal combustor. CPM is mainly composed of organic components and inorganic components such as sulfate and nitrate. FPM and CPM were measured simultaneously using EPA Method 201A (Determination of PM10 and PM2.5 emission from stationary sources) and EPA Method 202 (Dry impinger method for determining condensable particulate emissions from stationary sources). Combusting pulverized coal in a laboratory-scale combustor, the exhaust gas was sampled. The sampled gas first passed through a cyclone to capture filterable PM10 and PM2.5 and then passed through a condenser and impinger train to collect CPM. The organic components of the collected CPM were extracted with acetone and hexane and then analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS).
