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PFTIR Flare Testing Guide: Technology and Method Summary

PFTIR Flare Testing Guide: Technology and Method Summary

Synopsis

In the past, measuring the combustion products from an industrial-sized flare was difficult and dangerous, so little data on flare performance were collected. However, recent technological advances have produced remote sensing instruments capable of measuring combustion products such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and select hydrocarbons without the safety hazards introduced by physically sampling a flare plume.
One such instrument is the Passive Fourier Transform Infrared (PFTIR) analyzer, which remotely characterizes a plume’s chemical make-up (carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and total hydrocarbons) in units of concentration × path length. CleanAir has used PFTIR to measure the destruction efficiency of flares since 2009. The PFTIR method used by CleanAir is the same PFTIR method that was blind-validated against extractive sampling during concurrent testing by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and University of Texas in 2010. This guide is a description of the PFTIR operation and analysis.
Contents:
  • History of PFTIR Testing
  • Technology Overview
  • PFTIR – Operation
  • PFTIR – Theory and Analysis
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