ABSTRACT
There are few scientific reports that examine compositions of post-graphitising gases, both those carried away from the furnace and those emitted into the air, despite them being highly noxious to the environment. The reasons for this may be, on one hand, the niche nature of the graphite industry in the world and, on the other hand, the high difficulty in sampling and chemical analysis of these gases due to high variability of their concentrations versus duration of the graphitisation process, and a high content of organic compounds in the gases. Most research in this field, covering the manufacturing process in Acheson or Castner furnaces, is found in Mazur (1995) and Mazur et al. (1990, 2004, 2005, 2006a, b). These studies generally showed the changeability of air pollutant concentrations in post-graphitising gases and hourly emission values without emission factors. The emission factors were determined in Mazur et al. (2006b), but were only concerned with the graphitising of small carbon products in an Acheson furnace. In European Commission IPPC reference documents (EC 2001, 2009) there is no information about gaseous emission from the graphitisation process, except for the range of total hydrocarbon concentrations.
