Multisource emission retrieval within a biogas plant based on inverse dispersion calculations—a real-life example
2014
Hrad, Marlies | Piringer, Martin | Kamarad, Ludek | Baumann-Stanzer, Kathrin | Huber-Humer, Marion
Open digestate storage tanks were identified as one of the main methane (CH₄) emitters of a biogas plant. The main purpose of this paper is to determine these emission rates using an inverse dispersion technique in conjunction with open-path tunable diode laser spectroscopy (OP-TDLS) concentration measurements for multisource reconstruction. Since the condition number, a measure of “ill-conditioned” matrices, strongly influences the accuracy of source reconstruction, it is used as a diagnostic of error sensitivity. The investigations demonstrate that the condition number for a given source-sensor configuration in the highly disturbed flow field within the plant significantly depends on the meteorological conditions (e.g., wind speed, stratification, wind direction, etc.). The CH₄emissions are retrieved by removing unrepresentative periods with high condition numbers, which indicate uncertainty in recovering the individual sources. In a final step, the CH₄emissions are compared with the maximum biological methane potential (BMP) in the digestate analyzed under laboratory conditions. The retrieved methane emission rates represent an average of 50 % of the maximum BMP of the stored digestate in the winter months, while they comprised an average of 85 % during the measurement campaigns in the summer months. The results indicate that the open tanks have the potential to represent a substantial emission source even during colder periods.
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