AQE 2015: Timely Event Focused on Improving Air Quality and Emissions Monitoring

AQE 2015, the international air quality and emissions show, takes place in Telford, UK (April 22- 23), at a time when concern with air pollution and climate change has never been greater. Organiser Marcus Pattison said: “Visitors to AQE 2015 will be able to find new ways improve the quality and reliability of monitoring, whilst ensuring compliance with all relevant regulations and standards, but importantly, they will be able to find new ways to do so, whilst also lowering costs.”

Created to provide an update on the latest regulations, technologies, methods and research in air quality and emissions monitoring, AQE 2015 (www.AQEshow.com) is the eighth in a series of specialist air monitoring events that attracts visitors from all over the world and from a wide variety of sectors including central government, local authorities, industrial process operators, test houses, consultants, researchers, academics, instrument manufacturers, the media and anyone with a professional interest in air quality. The Conference and Workshops at AQE 2015 have been approved for Continuing Professional Development (CPD).

‘Emissions monitoring challenges facing operators and manufacturers’ will be the first topic explored following the Conference opening, with David Graham from E.ON Technologies explaining how stacks are defined. He will also provide a regulatory update on the Industrial Emissions Directive and the Medium Combustion Plant Directive. Jonathan Clark from Syngenta will then outline the challenges facing operators with small stacks and Dan Jones from E.ON Technologies will address issues facing the operators of large stacks, particularly in relation to staff safety and sample representativeness.

In the afternoon, Derek Myers from REC will provide an overview of the challenges facing test laboratories and others, when sampling dust from wet stacks; and finally, Rod Robinson from NPL will explain the measurement and calculation of stack flow rate for mass emissions reporting purposes.

The second day’s conference entitled: ‘Air Quality - Latest developments and tools’ starts with Stephen Stratton from Ricardo AEA describing a study on exposure to pollution at buggy height, adult height and air quality station height. Jacqueline Barr from IBI/Transport Scotland will also outline a Sensor Rotation Project in which a network of new monitoring technologies has been applied to traffic management and control systems. In the final presentation of the morning, David Green from Kings College London will report on a series of PM Speciation Studies.

In the afternoon, Martine Van Poppel from VITO Belgium, will explain the results of the CARBOTRAF EU Project which examined ways in which air pollution can be reduced by the latest monitoring technologies and effective traffic management.  In the final presentation, David Carslaw from King’s College London will describe 'OpenAir' (open-source software) which is a free software tool for the analysis and visualisation of air quality data.

With more than 90 stands featuring hundreds of the world’s leading organisations in air quality monitoring, the AQE exhibition will provide a unique opportunity to see all of the latest developments in instrumentation and monitoring services.

There will also be a poster competition under the theme: ‘Air Pollution is bad for our health – the impact of personal responsibilities and local action to deliver clean air.’ Sponsored by Environmental Protection UK (EPUK) and Environmental Technology Services, the competition will take place within the event’s exhibition hall. 

Over 50 free walk-in workshops, mostly provided by exhibitors, will address a wide variety of air quality monitoring themes including ambient air, stack emissions, occupational safety, nuisance dust, fugitive emissions and boundary monitoring.

A section of a ‘life-size’ chimney stack will be constructed in the demonstration arena, fitted with a range of different CEMS (Continuous Emissions Monitoring Systems), providing visitors with an insight into the latest online monitoring systems.

Under a ‘Monitoring on the Move’ theme, the ambient air quality monitoring section of the arena will feature an exciting variety of monitoring applications highlighting the latest wireless, battery-powered monitoring technology. Monitoring equipment will be fitted to a mannequin, an electric car, a remote control quadcopter and hot air balloons!

The charge for attending the Conference is £55 +VAT per day or £100 for both days. However, entrance to the exhibition and workshops is free and pre-registration guarantees free lunch, free refreshments and free parking. Online registration for AQE 2015 is open at www.aqeshow.com.