API PUBL 4723-A-2018

$44.20

Refinery Stream Composition Data—Update to Speciation Data in API 4723

Published By	Publication Date	Number of Pages
API	2018	276

Guaranteed Safe Checkout

Category: API

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to our online customer service team by clicking on the bottom right corner. We’re here to assist you 24/7.
Email:[email protected]

Description

The Petroleum Environmental Research Forum (PERF) completed a project in the 1990s to create a compilation of refinery process stream speciation data, which was later published as American Petroleum Institute Publication 4723 (API 4723). The refining industry has routinely used these data for various permitting and reporting purposes, such as estimating hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions from equipment fugitives, storage tanks, and loading operations; estimating emissions from miscellaneous process vents; and preparing Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) reports.

Since API 4723 was published, new regulatory requirements (e.g. Mobile Source Air Toxics rule, reformulated gasoline standards, lower fuel sulfur requirements) have resulted in refinery process changes that potentially altered the concentrations of species in process streams. Changing feedstocks, new process additives, and new catalysts may also have affected what species are present in specific process streams.

Therefore, PERF initiated a project to evaluate more recent process stream speciation data from several oil companies’ refineries. The project results are provided in this report. Data were compiled for 68 refinery process streams using an expanded list of chemical species. The chemical species selected are those that can be found in refinery process streams and identified in hazardous air pollutant (HAP), persistent bioaccumulative toxic, or TRI lists. For a given process stream, up to 75 chemical species were targeted for inclusion to capture a wider range of volatile, semi-volatile, and metal HAP compounds, compared to the 24 species in the original study. Some concentration data were reported for additional species beyond the targeted list, such that data for a total of 89 different species are reflected in the project results. Most of the new species are metal HAP and heavier semi-volatile compounds.

Updates to laboratory methods have generally improved method accuracy and provide for lower method detection limits (MDLs) than were possible for the original PERF project. The lower detection limits contributed to an increase in the number of chemical species identified in various analytical test methods. The lower limits also allow for lowering the floor that was used in the original study—a default MDL that was set at 0.01 weight percent. By contrast, for the current study, the lowest MDL was for benzo(a)pyrene at 1E-08 weight percent in a coke record.

Based on the more recent data, this report provides updated most likely values (MLVs) associated with 68 refinery process streams. Many process streams had decreases in chemical species MLVs versus the original study. Some process streams had increases, but these results were generally supported by larger datasets. More chemical species may have been identified in a given process stream compared to the original study due to the expanded list of species or due to improved laboratory methods providing lower MDLs.

The material contained in this report will be of use in estimating the emissions of specific chemical species, preparing permit applications, and performing other environmental assessments. API, PERF, and the project participants make no claims as to the suitability or acceptability of the stream composition data reported herein for specific reporting or regulatory purposes.

Additional information