The use of LIDAR as optical remote sensory in the assessment of air quality near oil refineries and petrochemical sites

Abstract

Petrochemical and oil refining facilities play an increasingly important role in the industrial context. The corresponding need for monitoring emissions from these facilities as well as in their neighborhood has raised in importance, leading to the present tendency of creating real time data acquisition and analysis systems. The use of LIDAR-based techniques, both for air quality and emissions monitoring purposes is currently being developed for the area of Cubatão, São Paulo, one of the largest petrochemical and industrial sites in Brazil. In a partnership with the University of São Paulo (USP) the Brazilian oil company PETROBRAS has implemented an Environmental Research Center – CEPEMA - located in the industrial site, in which the development of fieldwork will be carried out. The current joint R&D project focuses on the development of a real time acquisition system, together with automated multicomponent chemical analysis. Additionally, fugitive emissions from oil processing and storage sites will be measured, together with the main greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4), and aerosols. Our first effort is to assess the potential chemical species coming out of an oil refinery site and to verify which LIDAR technique, DIAL, Raman, fluorescence would be most efficient in detecting and quantifying the specific atmospheric emissions.