Отчет о «Загрязнении Атмосферы»

Orel State Agrarian University

Chair of Foreign Languages

 

 

 

 

 

Report on «Pollution of the Atmosphere»

 

 

 

 

 

Done by the 2nd year student

Ilyshina Natalia

Checked by the senior teacher

O. Bunakova

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Orel 2014

Content:

1. Pollutants

2. Sources

2.1. Anthropogenic sources

2.2. Natural sources

3. Health effects

4. Reduction efforts

List of Literature

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Air pollution is the introduction into the atmosphere of chemicals, particulates, or biological materials that cause discomfort, disease, or death to humans, damage other living organisms such as food crops, or damage the natural environment or built environment.

The atmosphere is a complex dynamic natural gaseous system that is essential to support life on planet Earth. Stratospheric ozone depletion due to air pollution has long been recognized as a threat to human health as well as to the Earth's ecosystems.

Indoor air pollution and urban air quality are listed as two of the World’s Worst Toxic Pollution Problems in the 2008 Blacksmith Institute World's Worst Polluted Places report.

1. Pollutants

A substance in the air that can be adverse to humans and the environment is known as an air pollutant. Pollutants can be in the form of solid particles, liquid droplets, or gases. In addition, they may be natural or man-made. Pollutants can be classified as primary or secondary. Usually, primary pollutants are directly produced from a process, such as ash from a volcanic eruption, the carbon monoxide gas from a motor vehicle exhaust or sulfur dioxide released from factories. Secondary pollutants are not emitted directly. Rather, they form in the air when primary pollutants react or interact. An important example of a secondary pollutant is ground level ozone — one of the many secondary pollutants that make up photochemical smog. Some pollutants may be both primary and secondary: that is, they are both emitted directly and formed from other primary pollutants.

Major primary pollutants produced by human activity include:

• Sulfur oxides (SOx) - especially sulfur dioxide, a chemical compound with the formula SO2. SO2 is produced by volcanoes and in various industrial processes. Since coal and petroleum often contain sulfur compounds, their combustion generates sulfur dioxide. Further oxidation of SO2, usually in the presence of a catalyst such as NO2, forms H2SO4, and thus acid rain. This is one of the causes for concern over the environmental impact of the use of these fuels as power sources.

• Nitrogen oxides (NOx) - especially nitrogen dioxide are expelled from high temperature combustion, and are also produced naturally during thunderstorms by electric discharge. Can be seen as the brown haze dome above or plume downwind of cities. Nitrogen dioxide is the chemical compound with the formula NO2. It is one of the several nitrogen oxides. This reddish-brown toxic gas has a characteristic sharp, biting odor. NO2 is one of the most prominent air pollutants.

• Carbon monoxide (CO)- is a colourless, odourless, non-irritating but very poisonous gas. It is a product by incomplete combustion of fuel such as natural gas, coal or wood. Vehicular exhaust is a major source of carbon monoxide.

• Volatile organic compounds - VOCs are an important outdoor air pollutant. In this field they are often divided into the separate categories of methane (CH4) and non-methane (NMVOCs). Methane is an extremely efficient greenhouse gas which contributes to enhanced global warming. Other hydrocarbon VOCs are also significant greenhouse gases via their role in creating ozone and in prolonging the life of methane in the atmosphere, although the effect varies depending on local air quality. Within the NMVOCs, the aromatic compounds benzene, toluene and xylene are suspected carcinogens and may lead to leukemia through prolonged exposure. 1,3-butadiene is another dangerous compound which is often associated with industrial uses.

• Particulates, alternatively referred to as particulate matter (PM), atmospheric particulate matter, or fine particles, are tiny particles of solid or liquid suspended in a gas. In contrast, aerosol refers to particles and the gas together. Sources of particulates can be man made or natural. Some particulates occur naturally, originating from volcanoes, dust storms, forest and grassland fires, living vegetation, and sea spray. Human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels in vehicles, power plants and various industrial processes also generate significant amounts of aerosols. Averaged over the globe, anthropogenic aerosols—those made by human activities—currently account for about 10 percent of the total amount of aerosols in our atmosphere. Increased levels of fine particles in the air are linked to health hazards such as heart disease, altered lung function and lung cancer.

• Persistent free radicals connected to airborne fine particles could cause cardiopulmonary disease.

• Toxic metals, such as lead and mercury, especially their compounds.

• Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) - harmful to the ozone layer emitted from products currently banned from use.

• Ammonia (NH3) - emitted from agricultural processes. Ammonia is a compound with the formula NH3. It is normally encountered as a gas with a characteristic pungent odor. Ammonia contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to foodstuffs and fertilizers. Ammonia, either directly or indirectly, is also a building block for the synthesis of many pharmaceuticals. Although in wide use, ammonia is both caustic and hazardous.

• Odors — such as from garbage, sewage, and industrial processes

• Radioactive pollutants - produced by nuclear explosions, nuclear events, war explosives, and natural processes such as the radioactive decay of radon.

              Secondary pollutants include:

• Particulates created from gaseous primary pollutants and compounds in photochemical smog. Smog is a kind of air pollution; the word "smog" is a portmanteau of smoke and fog. Classic smog results from large amounts of coal burning in an area caused by a mixture of smoke and sulfur dioxide. Modern smog does not usually come from coal but from vehicular and industrial emissions that are acted on in the atmosphere by ultraviolet light from the sun to form secondary pollutants that also combine with the primary emissions to form photochemical smog.

• Ground level ozone (O3) formed from NOx and VOCs. Ozone (O3) is a key constituent of the troposphere. It is also an important constituent of certain regions of the stratosphere commonly known as the Ozone layer. Photochemical and chemical reactions involving it drive many of the chemical processes that occur in the atmosphere by day and by night. At abnormally high concentrations brought about by human activities (largely the combustion of fossil fuel), it is a pollutant, and a constituent of smog.

• Peroxyacetyl nitrate (PAN) - similarly formed from NOx and VOCs.

Minor air pollutants include:

• A large number of minor hazardous air pollutants. Some of these are regulated in USA under the Clean Air Act and in Europe under the Air Framework Directive

• A variety of persistent organic pollutants, which can attach to particulates

Persistent organic pollutants are organic compounds that are resistant to environmental degradation through chemical, biological, and photolytic processes. Because of this, they have been observed to persist in the environment, to be capable of long-range transport, bioaccumulate in human and animal tissue, biomagnify in food chains, and to have potential significant impacts on human health and the environment.

 

2. Sources

Sources of air pollution refers to the various locations, activities or factors which are responsible for the releasing of pollutants into the atmosphere. These sources can be classified into two major categories which are:

1. Anthropogenic sources (man-made sources) mostly related to burning different kinds of fuel

• "Stationary Sources" include smoke stacks of power plants, manufacturing facilities (factories) and waste incinerators, as well as furnaces and other types of fuel-burning heating devices. In developing and poor countries, traditional biomass burning is the major source of air pollutants; traditional biomass includes wood, crop waste and dung.

• "Mobile Sources" include motor vehicles, marine vessels, aircraft and the effect of sound etc.

• Chemicals, dust and controlled burn practices in agriculture and forestry management. Controlled or prescribed burning is a technique sometimes used in forest management, farming, prairie restoration or greenhouse gas abatement. Fire is a natural part of both forest and grassland ecology and controlled fire can be a tool for foresters. Controlled burning stimulates the germination of some desirable forest trees, thus renewing the forest.

• Fumes from paint, hair spray, varnish, aerosol sprays and other solvents

• Waste deposition in landfills, which generate methane. Methane is highly flammable and may form explosive mixtures with air. Methane is also an asphyxiant and may displace oxygen in an enclosed space. Asphyxia or suffocation may result if the oxygen concentration is reduced to below 19.5% by displacement.

• Military, such as nuclear weapons, toxic gases, germ warfare and rocketry

 

 

 

 

 

2. Natural sources

• Dust from natural sources, usually large areas of land with few or no vegetation

• Methane, emitted by the digestion of food by animals, for example cattle

• Radon gas from radioactive decay within the Earth's crust. Radon is a colorless, odorless, naturally occurring, radioactive noble gas that is formed from the decay of radium. It is considered to be a health hazard. Radon gas from natural sources can accumulate in buildings, especially in confined areas such as the basement and it is the second most frequent cause of lung cancer, after cigarette smoking.

• Smoke and carbon monoxide from wildfires

• Vegetation, in some regions, emits environmentally significant amounts of VOCs on warmer days. These VOCs react with primary anthropogenic pollutants—specifically, NOx, SO2, and anthropogenic organic carbon compounds—to produce a seasonal haze of secondary pollutants.

• Volcanic activity, which produce sulfur, chlorine, and ash particulates

3. Emission factors

Air pollutant emission factors are representative values that people attempt to relate the quantity of a pollutant released to the ambient air with an activity associated with the release of that pollutant. These factors are usually expressed as the weight of pollutant divided by a unit weight, volume, distance, or duration of the activity emitting the pollutant (e.g., kilograms of particulate emitted per tonne of coal burned). Such factors facilitate estimation of emissions from various sources of air pollution. In most cases, these factors are simply averages of all available data of acceptable quality, and are generally assumed to be representative of long-term averages.

There are 12 compounds in the list of POPs. Dioxins and furans are two of them and are intentionally created by combustion of organics, like open burning of plastics. The POPs are also endocrine disruptor and can mutate the human genes.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency has published a compilation of air pollutant emission factors for a multitude of industrial sources. The United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and many other countries have published similar compilations, as well as the European Environment Agency.

3. Health effects

Air pollution is a significant risk factor for multiple health conditions including respiratory infections, heart disease, and lung cancer, according to the WHO. The health effects caused by air pollution may include difficulty in breathing, wheezing, coughing, asthma and aggravation of existing respiratory and cardiac conditions. These effects can result in increased medication use, increased doctor or emergency room visits, more hospital admissions and premature death. The human health effects of poor air quality are far reaching, but principally affect the body's respiratory system and the cardiovascular system. Individual reactions to air pollutants depend on the type of pollutant a person is exposed to, the degree of exposure, the individual's health status and genetics.

The most common sources of air pollution include particulates, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide. Both indoor and outdoor air pollution have caused approximately 3.3 million deaths worldwide. Children aged less than five years that live in developing countries are the most vulnerable population in terms of total deaths attributable to indoor and outdoor air pollution.

The World Health Organization states that 2.4 million people die each year from causes directly attributable to air pollution, with 1.5 million of these deaths attributable to indoor air pollution. "Epidemiological studies suggest that more than 500,000 Americans die each year from cardiopulmonary disease linked to breathing fine particle air pollution. . ." A study by the University of Birmingham has shown a strong correlation between pneumonia related deaths and air pollution from motor vehicles. Worldwide more deaths per year are linked to air pollution than to automobile accidents. A 2005 study by the European Commission calculated that air pollution reduces life expectancy by an average of almost nine months across the European Union. Causes of deaths include aggravated asthma, emphysema, lung and heart diseases, and respiratory allergies. The US EPA estimates that a proposed set of changes in diesel engine technology could result in 12,000 fewer premature mortalities, 15,000 fewer heart attacks, 6,000 fewer emergency room visits by children with asthma, and 8,900 fewer respiratory-related hospital admissions each year in the United States.

The US EPA estimates allowing a ground-level ozone concentration of 65 parts per billion, would avert 1,700 to 5,100 premature deaths nationwide in 2020 compared with the current 75-ppb standard. The agency projects the stricter standard would also prevent an additional 26,000 cases of aggravated asthma, and more than a million cases of missed work or school.

The worst short term civilian pollution crisis in India was the 1984 Bhopal Disaster. Leaked industrial vapours from the Union Carbide factory, belonging to Union Carbide, Inc., U.S.A., killed more than 25,000 people outright and injured anywhere from 150,000 to 600,000. The United Kingdom suffered its worst air pollution event when the December 4 Great Smog of 1952 formed over London. In six days more than 4,000 died, and 8,000 more died within the following months. An accidental leak of anthrax spores from a biological warfare laboratory in the former USSR in 1979 near Sverdlovsk is believed to have been the cause of hundreds of civilian deaths. The worst single incident of air pollution to occur in the US occurred in Donora, Pennsylvania in late October, 1948, when 20 people died and over 7,000 were injured.

A new economic study of the health impacts and associated costs of air pollution in the Los Angeles Basin and San Joaquin Valley of Southern California shows that more than 3800 people die prematurely (approximately 14 years earlier than normal) each year because air pollution levels violate federal standards. The number of annual premature deaths is considerably higher than the fatalities related to auto collisions in the same area, which average fewer than 2,000 per year.

Diesel exhaust is a major contributor to combustion derived particulate matter air pollution. In several human experimental studies, using a well validated exposure chamber setup, DE has been linked to acute vascular dysfunction and increased thrombus formation. This serves as a plausible mechanistic link between the previously described association between particulates air pollution and increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Reduction efforts

There are various air pollution control technologies and land use planning strategies available to reduce air pollution. At its most basic level land use planning is likely to involve zoning and transport infrastructure planning. In most developed countries, land use planning is an important part of social policy, ensuring that land is used efficiently for the benefit of the wider economy and population as well as to protect the environment.

Efforts to reduce pollution from mobile sources includes primary regulation (many developing countries have permissive regulations), expanding regulation to new sources (such as cruise and transport ships, farm equipment, and small gas-powered equipment such as lawn trimmers, chainsaws, and snowmobiles), increased fuel efficiency (such as through the use of hybrid vehicles), conversion to cleaner fuels (such as bioethanol, biodiesel, or conversion to electric vehicles).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

List of Literature:

1.Andersen, Z. J., Bonnelykke, K., Hvidberg, M., Jensen, S. S., Ketzel, M., Loft, S., Raaschou-Nielsen, O. (2011). «Long-term exposure to air pollution and asthma hospitalisations in older adults: a cohort study».

2. London Assembly Environment Committee (2009). "Every Breath You Take".

3. House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (2010). "Environmental Audit Committee - Fifth Report Air Quality

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Загрязнение воздуха - введение в атмосферу химикатов, макрочастиц или биологических материалов, которые вызывают дискомфорт, болезнь, или смерть людям, повреждают другие живые организмы, такие как продовольственные зерновые культуры или повреждают окружающую среду или искусственную среду.

Атмосфера - сложная динамическая естественная газообразная система, которая важна, чтобы поддержать жизнь на планете Земле. Стратосферическое истощение озона из-за загрязнения воздуха долго признавалось угрозой здоровью человека так же как экосистемам Земли.

Загрязнение воздуха в помещении  и городское качество воздуха перечислены как две из Худших Токсичных проблем Загрязнения В мире в Институте Кузнеца 2008 года Худший Загрязненный отчет о Местах В мире.

1.0.Загрязнители

Вещество в воздухе, который может быть неблагоприятным людям и окружающей среде, известно как воздушный загрязнитель. Загрязнители могут быть в форме твердых частиц, жидких капелек или газов. Кроме того, они могут быть естественными или искусственными. Загрязнители могут быть классифицированы как основные или вторичные. Обычно, основные загрязнители непосредственно произведены из процесса, такого как пепел от извержения вулкана, газ угарного газа от выхлопа автомашины или двуокись серы, выпущенная из фабрик. Вторичные загрязнители не испускаются непосредственно. Скорее они формируются в воздухе, когда основные загрязнители реагируют или взаимодействуют. Важный пример вторичного загрязнителя - озон уровня земли — один из многих вторичных загрязнителей, которые составляют фотохимический смог. Некоторые загрязнители могут быть и основными и вторичными: то есть, они и испускаются непосредственно и формируются из других основных загрязнителей.