Retrieving CH 4 -emission rates from coal mine ventilation shafts using UAV-based AirCore observations and the genetic algorithm–interior point penalty function (GA-IPPF) model

• Published in: Atmospheric chemistry and physics Vol. 22; no. 20; pp. 13881 - 13896
• Main Authors: Shi, Tianqi, Han, Zeyu, Han, Ge, Ma, Xin, Chen, Huilin, Andersen, Truls, Mao, Huiqin, Chen, Cuihong, Zhang, Haowei, Gong, Wei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 28.10.2022
• ISSN: 1680-7324; 1680-7324
• DOI: 10.5194/acp-22-13881-2022

There are plenty of monitoring methods to quantify gas emission rates based on gas concentration measurements around the strong sources. However, there is a lack of quantitative models to evaluate methane emission rates from coal mines with less prior information. In this study, we develop a genetic algorithm–interior point penalty function (GA-IPPF) model to calculate the emission rates of large point sources of CH4 based on concentration samples. This model can provide optimized dispersion parameters and self-calibration, thus lowering the requirements for auxiliary data accuracy. During the Carbon Dioxide and Methane Mission (CoMet) pre-campaign, we retrieve CH4-emission rates from a ventilation shaft in Pniówek coal mine (Silesia coal mining region, Poland) based on the data collected by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based AirCore system and a GA-IPPF model. The concerned CH4-emission rates are variable even on a single day, ranging from 621.3 ± 19.8 to 1452.4 ± 60.5 kg h−1 on 18 August 2017 and from 348.4 ± 12.1 to 1478.4 ± 50.3 kg h−1 on 21 August 2017. Results show that CH4 concentration data reconstructed by the retrieved parameters are highly consistent with the measured ones. Meanwhile, we demonstrate the application of GA-IPPF in three gas control release experiments, and the accuracies of retrieved gas emission rates are better than 95.0 %. This study indicates that the GA-IPPF model can quantify the CH4-emission rates from strong point sources with high accuracy.