A Modeling Framework to Quantify Routine VOC Emissions and Concentrations from Organic Liquid Tanks

Abstract

The oil industry has been a primary source of energy for years but it can also lead to the emission of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC). VOCs play a major role in the formation of photochemical oxidants and can be harmful to the ecosystem. Thereupon, effective mitigation and control strategies of air pollution have recently become more prominent for the oil industry. To orchestrate these strategies, the understanding of how air pollutants disperse from organic storage tanks should be improved. In this study, a modeling framework was developed to estimate in-field two-month average VOC concentrations caused by crude oil tanks. Firstly, United States Environmental Protection Agency's (US-EPA) Tanks 9b software was used to estimate emission rates from tanks. Then, Gaussian Dispersion Formulation was applied to simulate VOC dispersion. Following this, an in-house equation was used to represent the average VOC concentration at selected receptor locations. Moreover, in-field VOC measurement (passive sampling method) was also conducted to evaluate model performance. The normalized root-mean-square deviation between the measured and estimated VOC concentration was found to be 0.15. There was also a strong correlation between the two data with a correlation coefficient of 0.96. Overall, the results suggest the model statistically performed well with a 95% confidence interval. Due to its effectiveness and time-saving application, the method described in this study can be used to develop air pollution mitigation plans for organic storage facilities.

Keywords

• Organic Storage Tanks
• Volatile Organic Compounds
• Air Pollution Modeling
• Crude Oil

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