College of Sciences

A fire at a chemical plant in Rockdale County sent a colossal plume of smoke into the sky. Chemicals released from the fire at the BioLab in Conyers include chlorine, chloramine and chlorine compounds, according to the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency. Additionally, bromine — another chemical used in spa and pool treatments as an alternative to chlorine and has a bleach-like odor — was also detected, though at lower levels.

Love Family Professor Nga Lee (Sally) in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences says "a system known as the Atmospheric Science and Chemistry Measurement Network detected a 1,400-times increase in the amount of chlorine-containing particles in the air, and a 170-times increase in the amount of bromine-containing particles in the air over Decatur on Monday morning. Typically, there is little of either element in the air." 

Scientists in Atlanta are monitoring the BioLab fire situation and the impact on the air that we breathe. Reporter Liza Lucas with 11 Alive news interviews Love Family Professor Sally Ng with the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences for insight into what is in the air. "When the fire occurred, part of the pollutant was brought outside by the wind," says Ng. Her team documented an "unusually high spike in chlorine and bromine containing particles," but says "the spike still falls within EPA safety standards." Ng's team continues to monitor the situation. 

A chemical cloud has been emanating from Conyers since Sunday, when a fire broke out at the facility of a company that makes pool and spa treatments and sprinkler system water reacted with chemicals on site. The chemical plume put residents in Rockdale County into a shelter-in-place order. Associate Professor Joseph Sadighi in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry explained in a Q&A with 11Alive meteorologist Melissa Nord what is lingering in the air over the Conyers BioLab plant. He began with explaining the difference between chlorine and chlorine compounds. 

"Chlorine is an element that is very common in everyday life," says Sadighi. "Table salt is sodium chloride, which means it's chlorine that has picked up an electron and it's in a salt lattice that makes it very, very stable. If you run an electrical current through it, you can turn it into chlorine gas, that's a molecule made up of two chlorine atoms, and it is a gas under ordinary conditions. If we have it in a cylinder under pressure, at about eight atmospheres and room temperature, you have a liquid under the pressure of its own headspace like we do in propane gas cylinders for our grills."