A reduced reaction mechanism for the simulation in ethylene flare combustion

Industrial ethylene flares are considered to be a probable major source of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as formaldehyde. VOCs are chemicals that are responsible for the formation of other atmospheric pollutants like ozone. Due to the difficulty and cost of field measurements, on-line monitoring is not practical and other methods must be employed. Current methodologies for calculating speciated and total VOC emissions from flaring activities generally apply a simple mass reduction to the VOC species sent to the flare that does not consider the production of incomplete combustion or other intermediates. There arises a need of a speciation study for the inspection of these flare for their emission. However, most of the detailed kinetic mechanisms for the speciation study of flaring events are too complex, consist of large number of reactions and species, and also are computationally expensive. A reduced mechanism will thus be desirable for improving computational efficiency. In this study, a reduced mechanism for simulating ethylene flare combustion is presented. By retaining the important features of the detailed mechanism in the form of elementary reactions, and satisfying the species constraint of commercial CFD packages, the reduced mechanism, thereby, is useful for speciation study of flaring event.