In recent years, environmental pollution issues related to the (fugitive) emissions from factories have gained a great deal of attentions from the general public, as people are getting more aware of the potential adverse health effect that might affect their quality of life. With the increasing susceptibility of respiratory illnesses, such as children’s asthma or upper respiratory trait diseases, the figures of environmental nuisance complaints has been increasing at an unprecedented rate in recent years. The emission of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) not only contributes to the formation of ground level ozone and various air contaminants, but also triggers a variety of health problems, including respiratory illness, circulation diseases, or even malignant tumors. For these reasons, Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration (TEPA) has applied several air pollution control strategies, such as permit system, emission standards, fugitive emission control, and economic incentives, on stationary sources to reduce VOC emission and improve air quality.
For the purpose of investigating the emission sources of repetitive odor nuisance complaints, we have conducted a series of field monitoring campaigns in Tainan Technology Industrial Park, a community called “One Park” located in Miaoli County, Hsinchu Industrial Park and Fo Guang Shan Golden Light Temple in Sanxia area in New Taipei City. The petition cases of odor nuisance in both Tainan Technology Industrial Park and Miaoli County have dramatically decreased. The odor emission sources of Hsinchu Industrial Park and Sanxia area in New Taipei City were also identified, and a series of emission reduction plans were initiated accordingly. By enforcing two major emission sources to conduct process optimization, equipment renovation, or abatement efficiency improvement, at least 35 tons of VOCs reduction was achieved from a factory producing sunglasses in Tainan Technology Industrial Park. In additions, we have conducted four workshops with NIEA and EPBs (at least 160 attendees) to introduce the knowledge and method of investigating air pollution sources by means of optical remote sensing technology or other related analytical methods. Among various causes of odor nuisance complaints, surface coating of various material (including metal, plastics, and paper) contribute a significant levels of VOCs to the surrounded environment, as a great deal of organic solvent are utilized during the processing period.
Moreover, process heaters such as flare, FCCU, CCU, coke calcining and delayed coking were regulated by NESHAP, BAAQMD, and TCEQ, recently. The remote measurement of heat emission sources (eg. cracker, elevated flare, and thermo-oxidizer) by the “hybrid system” consisted of a passive-FTIR and a gas imaging detector was performed at Mailio industrial park and Dashe industrial park, respectively. A number of highly reactive VOCs (HRVOC, eg. ethylene and propylene) and hazardous air pollutants (HAPs, eg. acetaldehyde) emitted from elevated flares were detected by the hybrid system from 196 to 530 meters away from the measurement sites in Mailio industrial park. Whereas, 1,3-butadiene and ammonia emitted from both a elevated flare and a thermal oxidizer were also detected from 343 to 680 meters away from the measurement sites in Dashe industrial park. The hybrid system, a standoff remote sensing technology with the combination of PFTIR and gas imaging detector was proved to be an effective and efficient tool to assist with pollution auditing, especially for flare. A number of elevated flares were found emitting process waste gases occassionally despite the enforcement of law in last year. The problem of flare emissions indicated that the accuracy of flow rate meter was in fact problematic, and therefore required regular auditing to uncover if there are any illegal operations. In additions, flare minimization plans should focus on root causes finding and how to reduce the chance of emitting from the flaring system.
Emissions and compliance status of five major sources have been reviewed and none of them were found incompliance with the law. Despite a number of minor mistakes were found, most of them are expected to be corrected by the end of this year. The auditing guideline in the petrochemical industry was completed this year. Totally 200 equipment components were inspected by the blow-through method to check the equipment leakage rate that are important for proper estimation of emission factors. The results indicated the factors were one to two order lower than the factors enforced by AP-42. A guideline on how to use correlation equation method to estimate leakage rate in equipment components has also drafted.
We also established localized HAPs emission factors for five different industrial sectors including synthetic fiber manufacturing, other synthetic resins and plastic products manufacturing, ethylene glycol manufacturing, other metal heat treating processes, and ABS resin manufacturing processes. HAPs emission factor for synthetic fiber manufacturing processes is in the range of 0.0003 and 0.1689 kg/ton-products, 0.0021 to 14.1243 kg/ton-products for other synthetic resins and plastic products manufacturing processes, 3.8E-06~9.4E-03 kg/ton-products for ethylene glycol manufacturing processes, 3.2E-06~4.8E-05 kg/ton-products for metal heat treatment processes, and 1.4E-03~5.2E-01 kg/ton-products for ABS resin manufacturing processes.
In order to reduce HAP emissions from petrochemical industrial park, results from two consecutive years of ambient sampling at two sensitive sites near E petrochemical industrial park shows 1,2-dichloroethane is the most significant HAP posing higher health risk among all HAPs investigated. There are seven plants using and emitting 1,2-dichloroethane in E petrochemical industrial park. Further site visit and stack testing of four of these seven plants, we found storage tank vent and material handling units of Q plant were the major 1,2-dichloroethane emission sources combining estimated 97.4 metric tons annually. Series of measurements of hazardous air pollutants were also conducted at the sensitive area near an industrial park to establish the HAP baseline of this industrial park. Results from 12 measurements indicate that volatile organic compounds, dioxins, heavy metal, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were commonly detected in the atmosphere.
