Determinación de la concentración de NOx a la que se encuentran expuestas las personas que frecuentan el sector del Terminal Terrestre – Latacunga.

Abstract

To determine the concentration of Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) in the environment represents an important point of study to define air quality; in the sector of the Terrestrial Terminal of the city of Latacunga – Ecuador, the degree project entitled “Determination of NOx concentration to which the people who frequent the Terrestrial Terminal – Latacunga are exposed to" was carried out. To analyze the average concentration of NOx in this sector, passive sensors with Triethanolamine, distilled water and N-butane were used, those which by the principle of diffusion and Fick's Law absorbed the NOx present in the environment, they were analyzed in the Research Laboratory of the Faculty of Sciences, through the use of coloring reagents prepared with elements such as sulfamyl acid, Naphthylamine, and acetic acid; afterwards and using the spectrophotometer, absorbance values were obtained to 540 nm, by means of the necessary engineering calculations, it was possible to determine an average value of the concentration of NOx to which the people who frequent the Terrestrial Terminal of Latacunga are exposed. In the same way, all the values collected from the 40 monitoring points were took into account for calculations based on the ambient temperature of more influential meteorological factors to calculate the NOx ambient concentration. The calculated values helped to better understand the reality of this sector with respect to air quality and provided a better idea to have guidelines on how to mitigate the environmental impact of the vehicle fleet in the sector and the presence of street vendors and large pedestrian traffic.