Technical Guidance Note - M16 (April 2011)

Posted on: May 19, 2011

Monitoring volatile organic compounds in stack gas emissions

This Technical Guidance Note (TGN) is one of a series providing guidance to our staff, monitoring contractors, industry and other parties interested in emissions and regulatory monitoring.
This note provides information on the sampling, monitoring and measuring of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to air from industrial processes.

The term volatile organic compounds (VOCs) covers an enormous range of classes of chemicals, such as aliphatic, aromatic and halogenated hydrocarbons, aldehydes, ketones, esters, ethers, alcohols, acids and amines. It is recognised that certain VOCs are involved in the generation of photochemical oxidants, in particular ozone, in the troposphere. VOCs are an important class of pollutants commonly found in the atmosphere at ground level in urban and industrial centres.
There are various definitions of VOCs. We have adopted the United Nations Economic Council for Europe (UNECE) definition, which defines a VOC as any organic compound which is emitted from non-natural processes and has a photochemical ozone creation potential (POCP).
We interpret this as any organic compound released to the atmosphere from an operator’s plant or process, excluding releases of naturally produced VOCs from within the plant boundary and methane.
A large number of industries emit VOCs. These emissions have two main types of impact:

• a direct impact, where some VOCs can have direct effects on human health;

• indirect impacts through the creation of photochemical pollutants such as ozone, which is a
secondary pollutant. Ozone has direct effects on human health, plants and materials. It is also a
greenhouse gas.

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