HOSTED BY Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Atmospheric Pollution Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apr Mass balance and behavior of mercury in oil refinery facilities A.H.M. Mojammal a , Seung-Ki Back a , Yong-Chil Seo a,* , Jeong-Hun Kim b a Department of Environmental Engineering, Yonsei University, Yonseidae-gil 1, Wonju City, Republic of Korea b National Institute of Environmental Research, Hwangyeong-ro 42, Seo-gu, Incheon Metropolitan City, Republic of Korea ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Mercury releases Oil refinery Emission factor Mass balance Mass distribution ABSTRACT This study aims to provide the mass balance of mercury and an assessment of anthropogenic mercury release into the air, water, wastes, and products from two oil refinery plants in Korea. The mercury concentrations in input streams (crude oil and condensates) and output streams (petroleum products and by-products, such as fly ash, sludge and waste water, and flue gas) were measured at two representative oil refineries. After normalizing the measured data at low recovery rates, facility A was found to release the most mercury through products, sludge, and air at 77.9%, 8.3%, and 8% respectively, and facility B released the most mercury through products, sludge, and air at 44.8%, 37.6%, and 11.1% respectively. The average national emission factor of mercury into the air from oil refineries was estimated at 0.12 mg-Hg ton -1 input product. The average mass distribution factors of mercury by oil refinery processes into petroleum products, by-products, and the air was 61.35%, 29.08%, and 9.56%, respectively. 1. Introduction Mercury released into the environment comes from both natural and anthropogenic sources (UNEP, 2013a; AMAP/UNEP, 2013; Kim et al., 2010). Mercury compounds are toxic to humans and ecosystems (Kim et al., 2010). Bioaccumulation of organo-mercury in the food chain enters the human diet mainly through seafood consumption (Wilhelm, 2001). Japan experienced massive methyl mercury (MeHg) poisoning in Minamata Bay in 1950's, which was known as Minamata disease (Ekino et al., 2007). Algeria faced localized health problems within the petroleum industry during processing of liquefied natural gas in 1973 (Lang et al., 2012; Bingham, 1990). Therefore, careful management of mercury in the environment is required. Five rounds of negotiations followed after the Executive Council of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) in 2009 decided to launch intergovernmental negotiations for the enactment of a legally binding international mercury convention. After the diplomatic conference in October 2013, the “Minamata Convention” was concluded (UNEP, 2013b). Additional negotiations were held in 2014 and 2016 to fa- cilitate the enactment of the Minamata Convention and its im- plementation; consequently, the conference of parties 1 (COP1) held in 2017 resulted comments and suggestions about amendments to some articles of the Minamata Convention (European Parliament, 2017). Oil refineries are among the major anthropogenic sources of mer- cury owing to the mass production and consumption of petroleum products. No data based on the release of mercury during the petroleum refining is available due the concentrations of mercury in each out- stream are very low (Wilhelm, 2001; Kim et al., 2010; Pirrone et al., 2010; Lang et al., 2012; Pudasainee et al., 2014). Global anthropogenic mercury emissions to air in 2010 were estimated at 1960 ton-Hg (AMAP/UNEP, 2013). Out of this amount, 37.1% was contributed by artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM), 24.7% was emitted from the stationary combustion of fossil fuels, 15.5% came from non-ferrous metal production (Al, Cu, Pb, and Zn (9.9%), large-scale gold produc- tion (5.0%), mercury mining (0.6%)), cement production (8.8%) and waste sector contributed (4.9%) (AMAP/UNEP, 2013). Oil refining, mercury production, and cremation were classified as minor emission sources because their shares of emissions accounted for only 0.8%, 0.6% and 0.2% of the global anthropogenic mercury emissions in 2010 (AMAP/UNEP, 2013). The technical background report for the Global Mercury Assessment 2013 estimated that the abated mercury emissions into the air in Korea was at 7.2 ton-Hg for the year 2010 and of this amount, 0.37 ton-Hg (5.2%) were contributed by the oil refining sector (AMAP/UNEP, 2013). However, this estimation of the amount of Hg emission from oil refining did not consider the recently adopted in- novations of efficient air pollution control devices (APCDs), process development, better environmental practices, and improved raw https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apr.2018.07.002 Received 2 May 2018; Received in revised form 6 July 2018; Accepted 6 July 2018 Peer review under responsibility of Turkish National Committee for Air Pollution Research and Control. * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: mojammal.ahm@gmail.com (A.H.M. Mojammal), bskee@paran.com (S.-K. Back), seoyc@yonsei.ac.kr (Y.-C. Seo), magnus@korea.kr (J.-H. Kim). Atmospheric Pollution Research xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx 1309-1042/ © 2018 Turkish National Committee for Air Pollution Research and Control. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. Please cite this article as: Mojammal, A.H., Atmospheric Pollution Research (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apr.2018.07.002