(595f) Ozone Impacts of Flaring Emissions Considering Crosswind Effects

Industrial flares emissions have been considered as a major part of point source emissions of CAMx model in a metropolitan region heavily concentrated with chemical plants, i.e., the Houston-Galveston region in Texas. Flare emissions depend heavily on a flare’s destruction efficiency. Several studies have shown that crosswind may compromise the expected 98% combustion efficiency level of the flares. In this study,  a CAMx simulation has been performed to predict the effect of  crosswind on the formation of Ozone.

Both experimental flare data and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation showed that the flare flames are prone to inefficient combustion under high crosswind velocity. In the CAMx simulations, the efficiencies of the flares in the Texas area vary with crosswind velocity. As the efficiency decreases, the emissions including VOCs and NO_X, both of which are ozone precursors, will change. The obtained flaring emissions are then incorporated into a CAMx air quality simulation model to simulate the effect of these VOCs and NO_X emissions on the regional ozone concentrations. The June 2006 ozone episode is selected to represent the meteorological conditions. The required emission inventories from different sources, i.e., point, mobile, area, and biogenic sources, are acquired from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). A model run has been conducted in which flare emissions are changed. At the same time, the potential source contribution function (PSCF)-based HRVOC reconciliation is removed.  The results show that the model with crosswind effect can predict the ozone concentrations better.