Historical volatile organic compounds emission performance and reduction potentials in China’s petroleum refining industry

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.125810Get rights and content

Abstract

The petroleum refining industry in China is a major contributor to the national economy and a significant source of ambient volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The development history of China’s refineries was investigated for the period 1949–2018, and future development trends were predicted until 2030. The historical VOC emissions from 1949 to 2018 were estimated based on source-specific emission factors, and the emissions in 2025 and 2030 were predicted under the business-as-usual (BAU), alternative control (AC), and accelerated control (ACC) scenarios. Each scenario consisted of a policy and a technical scenario. VOC emissions from refineries increased from 0.53 Gg in 1949 to 1.12 Tg in 2018; fugitive emissions were always the most significant sources of VOCs (40.0–43.9%), followed by end-of-pipe (28.4–31.3%), tank storage (18.3–25.3%), and wastewater treatment (5.8–6.6%) emissions. Provinces in the coastal area have experienced more VOC emissions than inland areas, and Eastern China currently has the highest VOC emissions from refineries. By 2030, China could reduce its current VOC emissions by 5.4%, 35.7%, and 62.5% under the BAU, AC, and ACC scenarios, respectively. The main pressure for reducing VOC emission from China’s refineries will come predominantly from Northeastern China, followed by Eastern and Northern China. The improvement of the production processes, enhancing the airtightness of equipment and containers, and implementation of improved leak detection and repair system are the more effective measures in reducing VOC emissions, accounting for more than 40% of the total reduction. In addition, the penetration and removal rate of control measures for end-of-pipe sources should be further strengthened.

Introduction

Energy security, environmental pollution, and climate change are common problems worldwide. China has become the largest energy consumer and producer, accounting for 23% of the global energy consumption (Xu et al., 2018a, Xu et al., 2018c; BP Energy, 2020) and 22.4% of the global energy production (Masnadi Mohammad et al., 2018). Oil consumption in China is growing at an average annual rate of 5% since 1990, and China is playing a pivotal role in the petroleum products market by continuously expanding the processing capacity of its refineries (Jia et al., 2020). It has become the second largest oil-refining country, accounting for 16% of the global refining capacity in 2017 and contributing an approximately 60% increase from 1990 to 2017 (Liu et al., 2013, 2020; Lin and Wang, 2019). The petroleum refining process is not only related to energy production and consumption, but also affects the climate, increase air pollution, and compromises the quality of life (Liu et al., 2020). The life-cycle assessment of petroleum refining processes and production usage has revealed that the petroleum refining stage is responsible for more than 40% of environmental impacts such as ozone pollution, climate change, and human toxicity (Morales et al., 2015; Liu et al., 2020). However, emissions of PM2.5, CO2, SO2, and NOx (NO2 and NO) from industrial sources, including the refining industry, are decreasing mainly owing to Clean Air Act (Jia et al., 2020; Li et al., 2020; Qiang, 2010; Wen and Li et al., 2020). In contrast, the amounts of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from refineries and other chemical industries have been increasing, and VOCs had not received much attention until recent years (Sun et al., 2018; Li et al., 2019b; Simayi et al., 2019).

Refineries transform crude oil into petroleum products and are vital for the production of fuels, which people rely on for transportation, heating, and other industrial and living activities (Walls, 2010). However, refineries are the single largest point sources of VOCs and may contribute significantly to the formation of ozone on a regional scale owing to large emissions of highly reactive VOCs (Nelson, 2013). The refining industry follows complex production processes that create tens of thousands of VOC discharge routines, including dissipation during the loading and unloading of raw materials and products, storage tank breathing, and wastewater treatment (Wei et al., 2016; Ragothaman and Anderson, 2017). Therefore, VOC emissions from petroleum refineries contribute significantly to anthropogenic VOCs. For instance, the amount of VOC emissions from Turkish refineries was 105.3 Gg in 2010 under uncontrolled conditions, representing 34.6% of the industrial VOC emissions in Turkey (Alyuz and Alp, 2014). In the United States, petroleum refineries accounted for approximately 2% of the criteria air pollutant emissions and 3% of the VOC emissions from all industrial sources (USA-EPA, 2011, 2019). In China, the petroleum refining industry has become the key source of control for the reduction of the total and reactive VOCs to reduce ozone (O3) pollution (PRC Ministry of Ecology and Environment of, 2019).

Ozone is generated in air through a photochemical reaction promoted by VOCs and NOx, and O3 pollution has become the most critical environmental problem in many cities in China (Lu et al., 2018; Li et al., 2020; Mozaffar et al., 2020; Simayi et al., 2020). According to a survey of 74 cities conducted by the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China in April 2016, O3 pollution has degraded the Yangtze and Pearl River Deltas since 2015 (Nie et al., 2019). During the summer of 2017, the maximum daily 8-h average O3 levels exceeded 200 μg/m3 in 30 major Chinese cities (Li. et al., 2020). Thus, China’s government promulgated and implemented a series of laws and policies, aiming to mitigate photochemical smog pollution caused by VOCs (Feng and Zheng, 2019; Feng et al., 2019). For instance, the “13th Five-Year Plan” aimed to reduce the 2020 VOC emissions by 10% compared with the emissions in 2015 (PRC State Council of, 2017; Simayi et al., 2019). To achieve this aim, the Ministry of Environmental Protection issued the “Comprehensive Treatment Plan for VOCs in Key Industries” and required a reduction of 3.3 Tg of VOCs from industrial sources in this period (Li et al., 2019a; PRC Ministry of Ecology and Environment of, 2019). Nevertheless, it is difficult for China to meet these goals while maintaining its rapid development and industrialization because VOC emissions continue to increase (Li et al., 2019b; Simayi et al., 2019).

Although the growth anthropogenic VOC emissions have slowed in recent years, VOC emissions from industrial sources are still growing, especially owing to the petrochemical industries. Sun et al. (2018) and Li et al. (2019b) showed that industrial VOC emissions were the main contributor to the increases in anthropogenic VOC emissions from 1990 to 2017. Qiu et al. (2014) and Simayi et al. (2019) studied industrial VOC emissions in China from 1990 to 2010 and from 2010 to 2016, respectively, and concluded that the petrochemical industry is the main contributor to industrial VOC emissions with a high growth rate. So far, few researchers have successfully measured the concentration of VOCs in the refining plants and their impact on the environment and human health (Zhang et al., 2017, 2018). However, the estimation of non-methane VOC emissions from Chin’s refining industry and its control pathways have not been sufficiently studied.

Refinery emissions are a worldwide issue, with refineries in various parts of the world emitting various pollutants at different levels. Although some research has focused on estimating and controlling greenhouse gases such as CO2, the characteristics and control methods of VOC emissions from refineries have not been reported (Morrow et al., 2015; Lin and Wang, 2019). VOC emissions from refineries need to be accurately estimate, and how to control their increase in China while increasing the crude oil processing capacity, is worth investigating. Analyzing the process-based VOC emission characteristics of refineries is vital to understand which sector of the refinery is the main emitter of VOCs. Then, more targeted control measures can be developed and help both scholars and policymakers to discover the causes of the increase in VOC emissions. In this regard, this study first explored the structural changes and changes in the crude oil processing capacity of China’s refining industry from 1949 to 2018. Then, the changes in the VOC emissions were analyzed, divided into different emission sectors and regions, and discussed. Three different control scenarios were formulated, selecting 2018 as a baseline year and 2025 and 2030 as the projected year. Here, the VOC emissions reduction potentials of each scenario based on the source type and region were discussed, respectively. Then, the implications of the assumptions behind the scenarios, necessary pace of implementation policies, enforcement mechanisms, and uncertainty of certain assumptions were expounded.

Section snippets

Background to Chinese refineries

The crude oil processing capacity of China’s refineries was 0.26 Tg in 1949 and increased to 105.28 Tg in 1989 at an annual growth rate of 16.5% (Fig. 1). Then, it increased from 114.65 Tg in 1990 to 611.68 Tg in 2018 at an annual rate of 6.2%. In 2018, China ranked second in crude oil processing capacity after the United States, accounting for approximately 15% of the global processing capacity (Liu et al., 2020). The refining capacity of different provinces in mainland China has changed

Data sources and forecast of activity level

The panel data from 31 provinces to analyze the characteristics of the current VOC emissions from refineries were examined. Data on the processing capacities at the national and provincial levels in 1949–2018 were obtained from official sources, including the China Industrial Yearbook, China Chemical Industry Yearbook, Statistical Annual Report of Petroleum and Chemical Industries, China Petrochemical Corporation Yearbook, China National Petroleum Corporation Yearbook, Annual Report of Sinopec,

Historical emissions

The trends of VOC emissions from China’s refineries and their sectorial distributions from 1949 to 2018 are shown in Fig. 3, and the regional emissions since 1990 are plotted in Fig. S5. The changes in historical VOC emissions closely matched the changes in refining capacity because there were no VOC emission control policies and measures until July 2017. From 1949 to 2018, the VOC emissions continuously increased with the increase in the refining capacity of each province. Specifically, the

Conclusion

This paper discusses the development of China’s refineries between 1949 and 2018 in different provinces and regions. Future development statuses were predicted until 2030 based on the “refining and chemical integration” program. The historical VOC emissions from China’s refineries were estimated based on four different emission sectors, and the spatial variations were evaluated for each province. Three different VOC emission control scenarios were projected for 2025 and 2030 and the feasibility

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Maimaiti Simayi: Investigation, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft. Yufang Hao: Visualization, Formal analysis. Jing Li: Investigation. Yuqi Shi: Investigation. Jie Ren: Investigation. Ziyan Xi: Investigation. Shaodong Xie: Conceptualization, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Air Pollution Prevention Joint Research Center of China for “The research of characteristics, emission reduction and regulatory system of volatile organic compounds in key sectors” (grant numbers DQGG0204).

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