Studying the physics of vertical transfer of emissions from industrial enterprises in the surface layer of the atmosphere

Mathematical modeling of mass transfer is widely used to study the spread of pollutants in the atmospheric air. One of the most important modeling problems is understanding the physics of vertical motions of fine particles in the surface layer of the atmosphere. In modern models, transport in the vertical direction is described by the movement of particles in turbulent flows, considering gravitational forces. Coincidence of simulation results with experiment can be obtained for stable states of the atmosphere. However, under conditions of atmospheric instability, the movement of particles in the vertical direction is also possible in ascending or descending convective flows. The paper estimates the average values of the vertical component of the velocity of fine particles of emissions from a coal-fired thermal power plant. The results were obtained using a semi-empirical method based on the use of an analytical solution of the stationary diffusion-convective transport equation and the measured horizontal profile of the pollution level in the surface layer of the atmosphere. Due to insignificant amount of particle fluxes, the profile was measured by the moss biomonitoring method, which provides long exposure times. Concentrations of chemical elements in emissions and accumulated in mosses during exposure were measured using neutron activation analysis.

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