Assessment of the usepa flux hood performance to measure volatilisation rate of odorous compounds from passive liquid surfaces

Abstract

Industrial and domestic wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are associated with environmental impacts to air quality in neighborhood communities. WWTPs are important sources of odorous gases to the atmosphere as nitrogen, sulfur, and volatile organic compounds (VOC). These odorous gases may cause adverse effects on human health, annoyance which can turn into complaints to authorities and price depreciation of properties. WWTPs are characterized by large areas representing fugitive sources of odorous gases (BOCKREIS; STEINBERG, 2005; CAPELLI et al., 2013; LUCERNONI; CAPELLI; SIRONI, 2017). WWTPs units with passive liquid surface, for instance, primary and secondary settlement tanks, non-aerated sequencing batch reactors, equalization tanks, aerated biological filters and stabilization ponds, are potential sources of odour emissions due to volatilization of dissolved odorants in the liquid phase driven by the interaction between the liquid-phase and the sweeping wind.