Patent ID: 11906161
Assignee: nan
Field: Environmental technology (Chemistry)
Classification: CPC F | IPC F

Claim 4:
5. A remote sensing system for remotely sensing combustion zone net heating values of industrial flares in order to monitor the flare NHVcz and thereby allow for the maintenance, in real time, of the regulatory NHVcz threshold of 270 BTU/scf, said system comprising:
an Infrared (IR) sensor disposed to sense IR radiance exhibiting two distinctive spectral bands emitted by combustion products in the form of gaseous or aerosols, each band having a spectral bandpass, the sensor being radiometrically calibrated against a blackbody calibration device to sense the radiance characteristics of the two distinctive IR spectral bands;
a flare gas net heating value instrument to measure NHVcz; and
an analyzer comprised of a microcontroller coupled to the IR sensor to operationally respond in real time by generating an indication of flare stack's performance as a combustion index derived from a ratio of the transmission characteristics of the two radiance outputs sensed by the IR sensor, wherein the NHVcz is measured in real time by the flare gas net heating value instrument, the combustion index is continuously calculated in real time, and said combustion index is correlated with the NHVcz to determine flare performance and continually allow for the adjustment of the NHVcz to maintain the flare performance at or above the NHVcz EPA regulatory threshold of 270 BTU/scf.