Field demonstration of the VOC Emissions Tracker (VET) to detect fugitive air toxic emissions in Dallas, TX

Volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions lead to negative air quality impacts by contributing to ozone and particle formation. Furthermore, many VOCs are also air toxics that are detrimental to human health. Fugitive and area source VOC emissions are highly variable both spatially and temporally, and thus pose a serious challenge in emissions detection, measurement and mitigation activities by industry and air quality regulators. Emerging cost-effective technological solutions are currently being developed and applied by regulatory agencies to address this challenge for more effective fugitive VOC emissions detection and for fenceline monitoring. Improved fugitive VOC emissions detection using these next generation emissions measurement (NGEM) tools can lead to significant benefits including improvements in local air quality, reduced negative health burden on affected communities, cost savings to industry, and safer industrial work environments. This presentation will discuss the development and field demonstration of the first prototype VOC Emissions Tracker (VET) as part of EPA's Dallas NGEM Demonstration study to detect and identify fugitive VOC emissions in Dallas, TX. The VET system represents a novel combination of several NGEM approaches, including a low-cost VOC fenceline sensor, wind measurements, an automated field gas chromatograph (autoGC), and automated whole air canister sampling in an integrated field package. The autoGC component is a prototype instrument customized to measure xylene to aid in the identification of xylene emission sources contributing to a concerning trend of elevated levels of this air toxic in the Dallas area. This work will discuss the development of the first prototype VET and will present preliminary results from its field deployment that started in August 2018 in Dallas, TX.