Thursday, October 02, 2014, 4:30PM - 5:30PM
Speaker
Katie Smith
visiting student, University of York
Location:
RL-1 room 269
Full title
Evaluation and application of a solid adsorbent method for monitoring exposure to volatile organic compounds from oil and gas operations
Abstract
Residential communities are being increasingly impacted by emissions from oil and gas development and this has driven the need for simple, effective, and low-cost methods for air quality monitoring. Primary emissions from oil and gas production consist of volatile organic compounds (VOC) ranging from the short chain alkanes and alkenes to aromatic and semi-volatile species. Over the course of a three-month period in the summer of 2014, cartridges were deployed at five monitoring sites located around Boulder County in the Colorado Front Range and exposed to ambient air for periods of up to four days along with concurrent sampling using stainless steel SUMMA canisters. The study of VOCs in ambient air has been used to compare the sampling technique of WAS canister and the passive cartridges.