Petroleum
Environmental Research Forum (PERF) Project Number 92-19 sanctioned under a Stevenson-Wydler (15 USC 3710) Cooperative
Research and Development Agreement (CRADA)
James G. Seebold, Chevron Corporation (Retired)
Founding Chairman, PERF 92-19 CRADA
Richard T. Waibel, John Zink Company, LLC
Director, Combustion Technology
In the United States, the 1990 Amendments to the Clean
Air Act made it clear that in the year 2000, regulations would be promulgated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
on emissions of hazardous air pollutants from the process heaters and industrial boilers used in the petroleum, petrochemical
and chemical sectors. Unfortunately, it was also clear that understanding, the "good science" upon which we aspire to base
sensible regulations, was simply non-existent and, further, that the paucity of field data then extant was severely flawed.
To amend those deficiencies, a 4-year $7-million fundamental attack on the origin and fate of trace emissions from gaseous
hydrocarbon external combustion was initiated by a government-university-industry collaboration that was, by all accounts,
one of the most successful ever. The collaboration produced fundamental knowledge and phenomenological understanding in two
important areas, one basic and one applied; viz.,
- A flame
is an extraordinarily effective reactor. From the basic standpoint, the program elucidated why and how the hot, rich diffusive
zones are prolific manufacturers of a myriad of reaction intermediates from the light partially-oxygenated species through
the heavy polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
- Emissions
of products of incomplete combustion (PIC) from typical petroleum industry burners are
extremely low. From the applied standpoint, the program elucidated why and how the highly-reactive diffusive jets of typical
petroleum industry burners are extremely effective in destroying the myriad of reaction intermediates that are manufactured
in the hot, rich zones.
These
and other findings of this landmark collaboration are discussed in this archival paper.
The PERF 92-19 CRADA participants are listed below. The research team structure is indicated on the next page along with a listing of the conditions tested
in the full-scale burner trials carried out at the Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, Combustion Research Facility Burner
Engineering Research Laboratory, the results of which are discussed in this paper.
PERF Project
92-19 CRADA Participants
U.S. Department of Energy
· U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory · Sandia Livermore National Laboratories
UCLA Chemical Engineering
Laboratory · Stanford High Temperature
Gas Dynamics Laboratory
National Institute of Standards
and Technology · Electric Power
Research Institute
Amoco · Chevron ·
Gas Research Institute · Mobil · Shell ·
Southern California Gas Company
Texaco · Alzeta ·
Arthur D. Little · Callidus · John Zink · Energy and Environmental Research
Presented at the 10th International
Congress on Combustion By-Products and Their Health Effects
Isola
d'Ischia, Italy, June 2007
