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Show JT A - 3 International Flame Research Foundation 1998 Flame Research Committee 11-15 October 1998 Environmental Control of Combustion Processes: Innovative Technology towards the 21st Century Real World Emissions Data from Process Heaters At a Large West Coast Refinery Joseph U. Tleimat, Engineering and Technology Center, ARCO Products Company, Anaheim, California; Miriam Lev-On, Environment, Health and Safety, ARCO Corporate-Center, Los Angeles, California I N T R O D U C T I ON In 1988, the California legislature passed the "Air Toxics Hot Spot Information and Assessment Act of 1988", better known as Assembly Bill 2588 (or AB2588). California law required industry to inventory air emissions of more than 300 substances (later expanded to more than 700) to assess the potential human health risk to communities surrounding emission sources. Source testing, to characterize air toxin emissions, was required where reliable emission factors or engineering estimating techniques did not exist. In 1989 the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) initiated development of industry-wide air toxics emission factors with a pooled source-testing program for combustion devices. T w o rounds of testing were performed initially in 1989 and 1992. A common database of air toxin emission factors for petroleum industry combustion devices was created. This compilation became know as the W S P A Pooled Source Database (WSPA, 1992). In 1991 the Southern California Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) began considering assigning health risk limits to all emitting facilities. W S P A members evaluated their overall contribution and tried to understand them better. Refinery fired process heater combustion byproducts were found to be a significant portion of the total risk, as shown in figure 1. The major health risk contributors from combustion sources were Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, PAHs. They accounted for greater than 8 6 % of the risk associated with typical fired heater emissions as shown in figure 2. To understand the health risk and possibly what factors contribute to increased PAH emission, W S P A members looked closely at the test results hoping to draw correlations between emission factors and operation or design. Instead, a wide variation in test and quality assurance/quality control procedures was observed (particularly in the first round of pooled source testing). Recognizing the need for more reliable emission factors, W S P A developed a guidance manual for performing air toxics testing to ensure high quality data in the subsequent rounds of pooled source tests performed by its individual member companies (Soelberg et al., 1994). In draft form this manual served as the basis/template for the test plan developed by A R C O for conducting the testing campaign presented below. |