Evaluation of Air Pollution Dispersion in Al-Daura Refinery After Used Desulfurization Techniques

Sulfur dioxide is one of the dangerous pollutant gases; it has many effects associated with longer exposures to respiratory illness, alterations in the lungs, cardiovascular disease, and premature death. In this study desulfurization techniques are applied to the burned fuel oil used in the Al-Daura refinery at two seasons (January represents winter and July represents summer) to reduce the emission of SO2. Method for desulfurization is based on oxidation (hydrogen peroxide) and solvent extraction techniques by N-methyl–2 -pyrrolidone (NMP) applied on crude fuel oil used in refinery, this method can remove about 75% of sulfur from fuel oil used to a supplied refinery in 2017. The total amount of burned fuel oil is 60011.6 and 40418 kg/hour (January–July) through 2017. The emission rate for SO2 is calculated before and after desulfurization suggested to apply and leads to reduce the average monthly rates from 6000 to 2100 and 2900–700µg/m3 at January-July at a distance of 1000 m from refinery point center. More reduction in farther distances in SO2 concentration reach to more than 35% resulted after applied desulfurization. This change in emission rate leads to modify the pollution spatial distribution of SO2 concentration according to the Gaussian model for the dispersion of pollutant around the refinery and with a distance reached to more than 10 km. Overall there is a significant change in the air quality of SO2 around Al-Daura refinery specifically in the southeast direction when this technique is applied.