Methodology to Model the Dispersion Pollutants Exposed to Chemical Reactions, Using Gaussian Models

The environmental impacts caused by the operation of gas-burning equipment are represented by high levels of surface level concentration of air pollutants (criteria pollutants and toxic).

It has become a need to find the optimun operation condition of most common applications of thermal combustion equipment so that do not imply a risk on the surrounding areas.

AERMOD was used to model the dispersion of pollutants generated by burning waste gas with typical composition in Colombia. It has consider the case of an emission source of generic characteristics, located in a flat surface and under general weather conditions (multiple Meteorology).

A sensitivity analysis of the critical pollutants concentration, subject to changes in the input parameters was developed, such as concentration levels of those pollutant in the emission source, gas flared volume, etc. This information are used to find the optimal operational conditions of gas flaring that lead to avoid the risk in the concentration levels of the pollutants in the surrounding areas.

In this study it was found that the concentration of SO2 at surface level is highly sensitive to the content of H2S and the volumetric flow of gas flaring (YSO2 Q = 0.0155 for the 5th up to 3 hr). in a less significant way, the height of the chimney (YSO2 = -11 334 Ln (h) + 68923, for up to 3 hr the 5th) and very insensitive to the output speed of the gases in the chimney.