In recent years, environmental pollution issues related to the (fugitive) emissions from factories have gained a great deal of attentions from the general public, as people are aware of the potential adverse health effect that might affect their quality of life. With the increasing susceptibility of respiratory illnesses, such as children’s asthma or upper respiratory trait diseases, the figures of environmental nuisance complaints has been increasing at an unprecedented rate in recent years. The emission of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) not only contributes to the formation of ground level ozone and various air contaminants, but also triggers a variety of health problems, including respiratory illness, circulation diseases, or even malignant tumors. For these reasons, Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration (TEPA) has applied several air pollution control strategies, such as permit system, emission standards, fugitive emission control, and economic incentives, on stationary sources to reduce VOC emission and improve air quality.
This project completed the investigation on finding the source of an unidentified odor noted in D1 and D2 Industrial Park of Chiayi County, which has been reported several times by the local people. According to the investigation, it is confirmed that the unpleasant smell was due to high-concentration sulfur dioxide (SO2), which was produced from a lead battery recycling factoring in the Industrial Park. Sulfur dioxide was produced from the incineration (melting) process of lead rods which were contaminated on their surfaces by sulfuric acid as the electrolyte solution. In addition, this project also helped to complete the Phase II (January~June of 2017) VCM environmental monitoring and pollution source investigation work for Ciaotou Elementary School’s Syucuo Branch in Mailiao Village of Yunlin County. According to the investigation, it is suspected that the axis of the cleaning valve (rotational device) of PVC polymerization tank cleaning machine during its operation may routinely cause tiny leakage every 8 hours (approximately 200 ppm by PID). As for volume reduction and pollution remediation, according to the above mentioned pollution source investigation results of Touciao Industrial Park and Ciaotou Elementary School’s Syucuo Branch, two volume reduction negotiation meetings were conducted in this project with the owner responsible for the pollution. Supervision and guidance were provided to help the owner to strengthen the improvement work. With regards to the unidentified pollution source tracking and investigation technology transferring training, 5 educational conferences were held this year, with a total participants of 198 people. In the rationalization of FTIR data measured by the monitoring stations nearby the area of specialized industrial park, the benchmarking process between the OP-FTIR data measured by monitoring station at L Industrial Park and C Industrial Park were completed and suggestions for improvement were proposed. In the investigation of non-point source air pollution release and migration issues, the air pollution monitoring work for the public parking lot in Zhubei of Hsinchu County and the parking lot in Central Taiwan Science Park of Taichung were completed. The results indicated that VOC emission, emission of side products due to incomplete combustion, evaporation of gasoline vapor and release of refrigerant from cars in underground parking lot were quite significant. In the investigation of the release of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the delivery process of chemicals by tankers, the OP-FTIR measurements were completed for the chemical delivery tankers nearby Qianzhen Elementary School of Kaohsiung (area near Linhai Industrial Park, Kaohsiung), Chaoliao Community Center (County road from Dafa Industrial Park to Linyuan Industrial Park), and C Industrial Park. From the investigation, release of volatile organic compounds was found from chemical tankers in their delivery process. This problem occurred especially when the sealing packing for the pressure release valve at the top of the tanker was out of function and the tanker was undergoing bumpy road or waiting for the traffic light, such activities may cause swirling of chemicals in the tanker, which facilitates the release volatile organic compounds into the atmosphere, leading to the issue of high concentration VOCs in local areas.
In the investigation of regulation compliance for petroleum (fossil fuel) factories, no non-compliance activity was observed. Furthermore, according to the previous regulation compliance investigation results for petroleum factories, recommendations for the amendment of VOC related regulations were proposed. In the investigation of coolant circulation for cooling towers in petroleum factories, according to the investigation results of two years, chromium-based water treatment reagent was not used by domestic petroleum factories. The VOCs concentration measured in the coolant of domestic petroleum factories complied with the regulatory standard and no Cr (VI) was detected. With regards to the regulatory standards for the emission of air pollutants from thermal equipment of petroleum industries, the regulations of NOx for thermal equipment in domestic and international petroleum industries were considered. Moreover, the two-year background investigation and monitoring results for thermal equipment in domestic petroleum industries were also taken into account to propose the draft of domestic “NOx Emission Standard for Thermal Equipment in Petroleum Industry”. In the investigation of VOCs emission from domestic surface coating related industries, background information investigation of 16 surface coating factories were completed. In addition, 15 vehicle (cars, motorcycles, and bicycles) surface coating factories were investigated to complete the inspection of emission route or efficiency of preventive treatment facilities for a total of 25 sites. The results indicated that there is still room for improvement in terms of the process emission release and preventive facilities in domestic coating related industries. Therefore, promotion of the regulation is essential. In the establishment of environmental concentration baseline of sensitive receptive area for industrial park with major stationary source, the environmental concentration baselines of sensitive receptive area for Formosa Plastics Corp's (FPC) sixth naphtha cracker complex and Renda Industrial Park were completed.
