Editorial pubs.acs.org/IECR
Preface to the Special Issue of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research on Industrial Flares his special issue of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research on industrial flaring reports results of studies sponsored primarily by the State of Texas and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). These studies were designed to improve our understanding of the air quality impacts of industrial flaring. This work was motivated by a series of air quality studies, extending back to the summer of 2000, which identified photochemically reactive hydrocarbon emissions from industrial facilities as important contributors to ozone and photochemical smog formation in southeast Texas.1−5 The observed ambient concentrations of these reactive hydrocarbons, especially ethylene, propylene, butenes, and 1,3-butadiene, were significantly higher than expected based on emission estimates. While not all of the sources of the underestimated emissions are known, several potential contributing sources, including industrial flaring, have been identified, as described in this special issue.6,7 Several measurement campaigns have been conducted to better characterize emissions from flares. A first step was to assemble measurements of flow rates and compositions of gases fed to industrial flares. As reported in this special issue, these data documented that mass flow rates to flares were highly variable, but low flow rates were observed for most operating periods.8 Since very little data were available on the efficiency of flare operations at very low flows (
