A new approach for estimating emissions of organic solutes and organic solvents under wind speeds

A new approach is developed to predict the volatilization loss of the pure liquid and the volatilization rates of organic solutes with different Henry's law constants (H) under wind speed. The tested compounds include eight volatile organic compounds for pure liquid and the forty-one organic solutes with different H compounds are divided into three groups that span seven H orders. The wind speed is set from 0 to 6.0 ms−1. A characteristic parameter ε was established to estimate volatilization loss of pure organic compounds. The mass transfer coefficient (KOL) ratios of the organic solutes, under both wind speed and still conditions, are applied to describe the volatilization characteristics of the selected solutes. The curve profile for KOL ratios and ε values relative to the selected wind speed can be divided into two stages, the sharp-rise stage and the stable-linearity stage. The critical finding is the ε values for the different organic compounds under a specific wind speed approach a constant. The changes in the curve profile of the KOL ratios are similar to the ε values of the pure organic compounds. It is also found the relatively lower H compounds exhibit a sensitive wind effect on the KOL ratios. The KOL ratios of the relatively higher H compounds indicate a similar linear increase with the increasing wind speed in the two stages. Accordingly, concentrations of the organic compounds at the interface are thought to the primary factor. The obtained results could be a good reference to estimate volatilization loss of the organic solutes or the organic solvents under different wind speed conditions.