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Dust emissions from industrial enterprises are often treated as total suspended particles (TSP); and they also quite often contain a wide range of chemical components. Among these components rather hazardous admixtures can be found, such as heavy metals, benzpyrene, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, etc. Structure of emissions in terms of admixtures contained in them is determined by raw materials applied at a specific production, production technologies, structure of an end product, etc. Being suspended, chemical components travel long distances; when dusts deposit, these components transform natural soil structures, influence geoecological parameters of biocenosis, etc. Calculation techniques that are applied in Russia to estimate emissions quite often combine all solid emissions into just total suspended particles (TSP) without any identification of toxic components that occur in their structure. In some cases this neglect of hazardous admixtures doesn’t allow correct estimating and predicting a geoecological situation in a zone influenced by emissions. The research goal was to suggest a procedure for geoecological situation prediction basing on an estimate of component and disperse structure of dusts contained in emissions from certain industrial objects; the procedure involved building up a typical “profile” of estimated emissions. The research involved using the following data and techniques: morphology and structure of particles were determined via electronic microscopy performed with a scanning high resolution microscope (magnification varied from 5 to 300,000 times) with S3400N “HITACHI” x-ray fluorescent detachable device. Chemical structure was determined via x-ray phase analysis of samples performed with XRD-700 “Shimadzu” x-ray diffractometer. The accomplished researched verified industrial dusts being poly-disperse and multicomponent. The paper contains examples of chemical structures typical for dust emissions. Study on morphological properties revealed that solid particles contained in emissions from various technological operations had diverse shapes. These properties give an opportunity to enrich an evidential base applied in assessing impacts exerted by an economic entity on ambient air. The paper outlines complex approaches to examining qualitative structure of dusts, their morphological properties, and disperse structure. These approaches allow building up a so called “emission profile”, that is, a stable set of properties belonging to a dust emission from a specific source or, in some cases, from a whole enterprise. Application of this approach gives an opportunity to reliably estimate impacts exerted by a given enterprise on ambient air; to correctly determine zones exposed to specific (marker) components; to determine chemicals making the most significant contributions; to perform predictive estimates of a geoecological situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Production activities performed by industrial enterprises involve ambient air contamination, including that with solid dust pollutants. As it is obvious from every-day practices, in most cases industrial enterprises with emissions containing a substantial fraction of solid dusts include suspended particles (TSP) in their control programs. A risk caused by an enterprise for population living on nearby territories is often assessed as per a sum of suspended particles contained in emissions; these data are also applied to work out administrative actions and to substantiate the necessity to implement activities aimed at environmental protection. But still, experience accumulated due to research accomplished in the sphere proves that solid dust emissions from industrial enterprises are a poly-disperse and a multicomponent mixture with complicated chemical structure; this mixture contains both organic and non-organic admixtures, including highly and extremely hazardous ones. In such cases control over ambient air contamination performed as per TSP contents sometimes leads to specific toxic components being concealed when such components are emitted into the air, and it will eventually result in underestimating health risks; sometimes, it can result in overestimating hazardous impacts exerted by an enterprise when it is next to impossible to separate dusts emitted from an industrial object under control and emissions discharged by other sources. An industrial enterprise dealing with mining was chosen as a research object. Emission samples and air samples were taken via active sampling at dust emission sources and at reference points in a zone influenced by the chosen enterprise. Dust concentration in samples was determined with a gravimetric technique and a laser analyzer. Particles morphology and component structure was determined via electronic microscopy performed on high-resolution scanning microscope (with magnification from 5 to 300,000) with S3400N «HITACHI» x-ray fluorescent device. A chemical structure was identified via x-ray phase analysis of samples performed with XRD-700 «Shimadzu» xray diffractometer. The accomplished research allowed to determine a component structure of dusts emissions and dust contamination structure at a boundary of the reference territory. It was detected that chemical structure of dust contamination at the reference territory boundary was substantially different from emissions discharged from the examined sources. It may be assumed that dust contamination at the reference points doesn't occur due to activities performed by the chosen enterprise but is determined by other sources (for example, other industrial enterprises, dust being blown off open soil spots, motorways, etc.). Therefore, control over TSP at the reference territory boundary doesn't describe impacts exerted by stationary sources belonging to the examined enterprise. Basing on the research results, the authors made some recommendations on approaches to creating relevant programs for control and monitoring over dust emissions from industrial enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]