Connecting top down and bottom up methods for characterizing VOC emissions from petrochemical facilities
Abstract
In the last decade, several measurement campaigns in the Houston Galveston Brazoria (HGB) area have uncovered striking differences between emissions of highly reactive volatile organic carbon (HR-VOC) species from industrial facilities reported to regulatory agencies and observed or inferred emissions based on atmospheric data. A review of measurement based emissions estimates in light of recent insights gained from a recent full-scale controlled flare operational measurements(TCEQ Flare Study) will be presented. Links between controlled flare emissions observations and specific types of industrial operations emission will be discussed. Some of the atmospheric measurement datasets are sufficiently complete to compute specific flare combustion characteristics. One such metric, destruction and removal efficiency (DRE) directly informs inventory development by connecting the reported vent gas flow rates to HR-VOC emissions. The impact of the improved emissions estimate on HGB ambient ozone will be discussed. Primary formaldehyde emissions and the potential 'trade-off' between decreasing HR-VOC and increasing black carbon particulate emissions will also be discussed.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011AGUFM.A52C..05H
- Keywords:
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- 0345 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE / Pollution: urban and regional;
- 0368 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE / Troposphere: constituent transport and chemistry;
- 3355 ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES / Regional modeling