ROOT CAUSES OF VARIABILITY IMPACTING SHORT TERM IN-PLANT PFC MEASUREMENTS

摘要

Commercial aluminum reduction is a significant anthropogenic emission source of the perfluorocarbon (PFC) gases carbon tetrafluoride (CF{sub}4) and hexafluoroethane (C{sub}2F{sub}6). Given the high global warming potentials of these two gases, concerted efforts are underway to monitor and reduce future emissions of PFCs from aluminum smelters. Given that PFC reductions represent a major opportunity for reducing greenhouse gas emissions at aluminum smelters, it becomes increasingly important that we quantitatively characterize the root causes of variability impacting PFC emission rates, emission measurements or emission factors based on these measurements. The present paper discusses factors impacting the reproducibility of plant-specific PFC emission rates and PFC measurement validity. Specific examples are derived from continuous one month PFC test campaigns at both center-work prebake and Soderberg smelters.