USING CONTINUOUS DIOXIN MEASUREMENT IN THE FRAME OF THE EUROPEAN LEGISLATION

Introduction

Continuous dioxin measurement is done since 1993 on several plants in Europe. Air emission measurement for dioxins are defined the council directive 2000/76/EC, the details of the measurement are defined in the EN 1948 standard.

Council directive 2000/76/EC defines in Annex V (d) the legal limit value and in Annex I the equivalence factors. Annex III defines, that all measurements have to be done as given by CEN standards, which is in the case of dioxin measurement the EN 1948 standard.

Part 1 describes the sampling, part 2 and 3 describes the analytical determination the laboratory. EN 1948 part 1 allows to use three methods: filter/cooler method, dilution method and cooled probe method.

Part 4, now developed by CEN/TC 264/WG 1, includes the measurement of the “dioxinlike” PCBs to the measurement.

Continuous monitoring extends the sampling period from 6/8 hour measurement to 1 week (2 week), which enables complete surveillance of the municipal waste incinerator operation time. So the total dioxin emission (I-TEQ as well as WHO-TEQ) of the waste incinerator can calculated, which allows to calculated the specific impact of this plant to the food chain.

There are some important reasons, why to check the emissions of toxic dioxins and PCBs more frequently and in a continuous way and to include also the “dioxinlike” PCBs:

􀂉 Bioaccumulation of PCDD/Fs and PCBs is continuing along the trophic chain
   One starting point of the trophic chain is air

􀂉 Toxic properties of PCDD/Fs and PCBs seemto be underestimate 

 As a consequence, WHO developed new assessment of the toxic equivalency of PCDD/Fs and PCBs. The    new assessment leads to changes of up to 40% of the equivalency values, which are calculated from    the measured concentrations of PCDD/Fs and PCBs.
 

􀂉 Impact of some plants to the food chain seems to be underestimated

Measurements once a year can not check problems of the flue gas cleaning system,if efficiency for dioxin removal changes