NOx Emissions from Blasting Operations in Open-cut Mining in the Hunter Valley
The Australian coal mining industry, as with other industries are coming under greater constraints with respect to their environmental impacts. Emissions of fume forming acid gases such as NOx and SOx to the atmosphere have been regulated for many years as a result of recent advances in the understanding of environmental and health effects of these emissions. Although NOx from blasting for open cut mining may only contribute a quarter of one percent for a mining operations total NOx emissions, the rapid release and high concentration that may be associated with such activities may pose a health risk should the resulting plume not dissipate rapidly and subsequently drift on to the populations in the surrounding environs. Hence, there is great interest from both mine operators as well as the public as to techniques capable of monitoring and quantifying these emissions. This paper presents the results of a new approach to measuring these gas emissions by scanning the resulting plume from an open cut mine blast with a miniaturised ultraviolet spectrometer. The work presented here was undertaken in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia during 2006. The dispersion of the resulting blast plumes was also modelled. Overall this technique was found to be simpler, safer and more successful than other approaches that in the past have proved to be ineffective in monitoring these short lived plumes.