Elemental mercury emissions from chlor-alkali plants measured by lidar techniques

Differential absorption lidar (DIAL) techniques have been utilized to measure elemental gaseous mercury fluxes from mercury cell chlor-alkali (MCCA) plants as a part of the European Union funded European mercury emissions from chlor-alkali plants (EMECAP) project. Three plants have been selected as study objects and a total of six measurement campaigns have been performed, one intercalibration campaign and five flux evaluation campaigns, in both winter and summer. The measurements were carried out using the Swedish optical parametric oscillator- (OPO) based mobile lidar system developed at Lund Institute of Technology. The study shows large differences in the mercury emissions measured in winter or summer and at the different plants. The average values for the campaigns ranged from 6 g h−1 in the winter campaign at the Swedish plant to 54 g h−1 in the summer campaign at the Italian plant.