MRIGlobal’s Expertise Addresses Environmental Impacts of Fugitive Dust
MRIGlobal has a distinctive expertise in the sampling, analysis, and validation of fugitive dust—the particulates in the air produced by heavy wind or damage to the ground surface from agriculture, mining operations, heavy construction, or use of roadways, for example.
It’s called fugitive dust because these particles are tiny—the principal interest is in particles no greater than 10 micrometers in aerodynamic matter—and they escape into the air without following a confined flow stream. This dust has the potential to damage human health and the environment, especially in arid regions.
MRIGlobal scientists study the relationship between climate change and fugitive dust, and characterize the stability of desert surfaces to understand and devise ways to control dust storms and to determine the emission factors of trucks in open pit mines.
Our Capabilities:
- Trailer-mounted plume sampling towers
- Mobile monitoring systems
- Portable wind tunnels
- Open-path Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy
- Satellite imagery
- Dedicated test sites, including in the Mojave Desert
- Expertise with more than 100 control methods
- Development of emission models, factors, and inventories
- Modeling of fate and transport of emissions
- Characterization of 10 micrometer (PM10) and 2.5 micrometer (PM2.5) particles
MRIGlobal’s Fugitive Dust Service Successes:
- Regulatory support: MRIGlobal has assisted the U.S. Environment Protection Agency in development of standard procedures and regulations of fugitive dust. MRIGlobal also supports fugitive dust analysis for regulatory compliance.
- Dustiness Test Chamber: This MRIGlobal-developed facility can determine the relative dust generation potential of various solids, such as soils, dyes, and compounding additives. The chamber can replace field testing to characterize fine particle emissions.
- Mitigation techniques: MRIGlobal delivers performance testing of dust-mitigation measures and has developed training on precision agricultural techniques, and analyzed and recommended strategies for minimizing vehicle mile emissions.
- Analytical expertise: With more than 40 years experience in the development of sampling and analysis methods, MRIGlobal has delivered characterizations of how aerosols are generated or entrained in the atmosphere, transported through the atmosphere, and how aerosols interact with the atmosphere, including analyses of moisture, silt, and meterological conditions.
- Protocols, methodology and modeling: MRIGlobal has developed protocols in monitoring, sampling, and analysis; methods for testing fugitive dust; and emission and dispersion modeling.