Measurement and Analysis to Quantify the Contribution ofCoal-Fired Utility Boiler Emissions to Ambient PM2.5

The summary for the Measurement and Analysis to Quantify the Contribution ofCoal-Fired Utility Boiler Emissions to Ambient PM2.5 grant is detailed below. This summary states who is eligible for the grant, how much grant money will be awarded, current and past deadlines, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) numbers, and a sampling of similar government grants. Verify the accuracy of the data FederalGrants.com provides by visiting the webpage noted in the Link to Full Announcement section or by contacting the appropriate person listed as the Grant Announcement Contact. If any section is incomplete, please visit the website for the Headquarters, which is the U.S. government agency offering this grant.

Measurement and Analysis to Quantify the Contribution ofCoal-Fired Utility Boiler Emissions to Ambient PM2.5: NOTE: Please read the Master Funding OpportunityAnnouncement for completeevaluation criteria and instructions on how to prepare your application.https://e-center.doe.gov/iips/faopor.nsf/1be0f2271893ba198525644b006bc0be/7dd24fd3b334d11985256f32005c0821?OpenDocumentApplications which fit the following description should be submitted underthisfunding opportunity title of Measurement and Analysis to Quantify theContribution of Coal-Fired Utility Boiler Emissions to Ambient PM2.5(DE-PS26-05NT42244-11).In order to assess the potential impact of reducing the emissions of PM2.5orits precursors, the percentage contribution of specific anthropogenicsourcesto the overall PM2.5 mass at specific receptor sites must be determined.Thecurrent approach for determining source contributions is to perform?receptormodeling? studies in which chemical mass balances or similar methods areusedto relate the primary PM2.5 chemical compositions of various emissionsourcesto the bulk PM2.5 composition at the receptor site. The accuracy of suchsource apportionment techniques depends on the ability to obtain uniquechemical signatures for each source or source class. The contributions ofbroad source classes (e.g., wood smoke vs. vehicle exhaust vs. coal boileremissions) at a given site can often be determined because of distinctdifferences in the bulk composition of primary PM2.5 from each sourceclass.However, it is much more difficult to use receptor modeling techniques todetermine the relative contributions of sources whose primary PM2.5compositions are similar; for example, even though selenium is often usedas amarker for coal combustion, oil-fired combustion units can also containenoughselenium to create a significant impact on nearby ambient receptors. Thedominance of secondary ammonium sulfate particles in PM2.5 at Eastern U.S.receptor sites can complicate the analysis even further, since bulk sampleanalysis techniques cannot uniquely determine the sources of either theammoniaor SO2 gases that presumably reacted to form the particles.Advanced analytical techniques, when applied to ambient PM2.5 samples andsource samples, may prove to be extremely valuable in source apportionmentstudies. For example, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques havebeenused to determine the percentage of fly ash (i.e., sphericalaluminosilicate)particles in ambient PM2.5 samples. Since spherical aluminosilicateparticlesare known to result exclusively from high-temperature coal combustion, theSEMtechniques provide a more direct estimate of the contribution of fly ash tooverall PM2.5 mass than techniques that rely on bulk compositioninformation.However, accuracy of PM2.5 source apportionment via SEM techniques is stilluncertain, and the application of this approach is still being developed.There may also be other advanced analytical techniques that can be appliedsuccessfully to quantify the contribution of coal-fired utility boilers toPM2.5 at specific receptor sites. Ideally, in cases where more than onecoalplant is affecting a specific receptor site, the technologies would becapableof determining the differences between the contributions of individual coalplants.Therefore, grant applications are sought to develop advanced analyticaltechniques for quantifying the contribution of specific coal-fired utilityboilers to ambient PM2.5 at specific monitoring sites. Concepts andtechnologies proposed under this Focus Area must show promise of being morereliable and more cost-effective than techniques which utilize informationfrombulk chemical characterization. The purpose of these advancedcharacterization technologies will be to provide information for sourceapportionment studies; however, applications to perform sourceapportionmentmodeling studies or to develop new or improved source apportionmentmodelingalgorithms will not be accepted.