Wind Tunnel Evaluation of Plant Protection Products Drift Using an Integrated Chemical–Physical Approach

The use of plant protection products (PPPs) has become fundamental to guarantee excellent field productivity. Nevertheless, their usage presents critical issues, such as the quantity of substances used, the relative toxicity, and the contamination of nearby fields caused by atmospheric drift. This s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAtmosphere Vol. 15; no. 6; p. 656
Main Authors Becce, Lorenzo, Mazzi, Giovanna, Ali, Ayesha, Bortolini, Mara, Gregoris, Elena, Feltracco, Matteo, Barbaro, Elena, Contini, Daniele, Mazzetto, Fabrizio, Gambaro, Andrea
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.06.2024
Subjects
aerosol
Aerosols
Aluminum
Chromatography
Drift
Drinking water
Drop size
Droplets
High performance liquid chromatography
HPLC
Image analysis
Image processing
Liquid chromatography
liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry
Mass spectrometry
Mass spectroscopy
Nozzles
particle/droplet image analysis
Pesticides
Plant protection
plant protection products
spray drift
Spraying
Sprays
Toxicity
Unmanned aerial vehicles
wind tunnel
Wind tunnels
United States > US
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Summary:The use of plant protection products (PPPs) has become fundamental to guarantee excellent field productivity. Nevertheless, their usage presents critical issues, such as the quantity of substances used, the relative toxicity, and the contamination of nearby fields caused by atmospheric drift. This study focuses on the characterization of aerosol droplets of PPPs produced by spraying a chemical marker, fluorescein, with an orchard airblast sprayer equipped with conventional hollow cone (HC) and anti-drift air inclusion (AI) nozzles, using a wind tunnel as a controlled environment. A particle/droplet image analysis was employed to study the droplet production of the nozzles, while a liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) analysis allowed us to evaluate samples collected using a cascade impactor located at 5 m, 10 m, and 20 m from the emission point. Overall, HC nozzles are very accurate at producing specific drop size distributions (DSDs), while AI nozzles produce a much wider DSD, concentrating the largest part of the distributed volume into droplets of a larger size. The marker concentration was much lower for the AI nozzles compared to the HC nozzles; moreover, the two nozzles show a similar trend in the coarse droplet range, while significantly differing in the fine droplet spectrum.
ISSN:2073-4433
2073-4433
DOI:10.3390/atmos15060656