Control of Volatile Organic Compounds Emissions from Manufacturing

D.2.2 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Air Oxidation Unit Test
-Data
The EPA test study represents the most in-depth work available
for full-scale incinerators on air oxidation vents at three chemical
plants. Data includes inlet/outlet tests on three large incinerators.
The tests measured inlet and outlet VOC concentrations by compound for
different incinerator temperatures. The referenced test reports
include complete test results, process rates, and test method descriptions.
The three plants tested are Denka's maleic anhydride unit in Houston,
Texas, Rohm and Haas's acrylic acid unit in Deer Park, Texas, and
Union Carbide's acrylic acid unit in Taft, Louisiana. The data from
Union Carbide include test results for two different incinerator
temperatures. The data from Rohm and Haas include results for three
temperatures. In all tests, bags were used for collecting integrated
samples and a GC/FID was used for organic analysis.
D.2.2.1 Denka Test ~ata.4 The Denka maleic anhydride facility
has a nameplate capacity of 23 Gg/yr (50 mill ion 1 bs/yy). Maleic
anhydride is produced by vapor-phase catalytic oxidation of benzene.
The liquid effluent from the absorber, after undergoing recovery
operations, is about 40 weight percent aqueous solution of maleic
acid. The absorber vent is directed to the incinerator. The thermal
incinerator has a primary heat recovery system to generate process
steam and uses natural gas as supplemental fuel. The plant was operating
at about 70 percent of capacity when the sampling was conducted. The
plant personnel did not think that the lowered production rate would
seriously affect the validity or representativeness of the results.
1. Control Device. The size of the incinerator combustion
chamber is 204 m2 (2,195 ft2). There are three thermocouples used to
sense the flame temperature, and these are averaged to give the temperature
recorded in the control room.
is provided in Figure D-3.
A rough sketch of the combustion chamber
2. Sampling and Analytical Techniques. Gas samples of total
hydrocarbons (THC), benzene, methane, and ethane were obtai ned according
to the September 27, 1977, EPA draft benzene method. Seventy-liter
a1 uminized MylarR bags were used to collect samples over periods of