Emerald Performance Materials
Henry, Illinois
Intern: Debalina Dasgupta
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
The Emerald Performance Materials plant in Henry is a specialty chemical manufacturer. This
facility was originally built in 1958 by BF Goodrich and has changed hands
several times before becoming Emerald Performance Materials in April 2006. The
facility produces a wide array of chemicals, ranging from rubber accelerators
to jet fuel to personal care products. The facility has 79 employees.
The intern worked on several projects at the facility.
Results:
The student assisted in reporting the facility’s TRI (Toxic Release
Inventory) SARA 313 annual data by:
- Utilizing TANKS software from the USEPA to calculate emissions from both
the horizontal and vertical tanks containing organic liquids. This
was done to avoid over reporting of emissions.
- Calculating mass balances of all the processes to form a baseline for emissions.
- Updating process flow diagrams (PFD) for the toluene recovery process to
identify changes to the existing processes to accurately estimate emissions.
By updating the PFDs for the toluene recovery process, the intern recommended
the installation of a new decanter to handle an increased recovery rate for
reuse of toluene in the process.
The intern developed an experimental procedure to recover more carbon disulfide
from one of the facility processes to meet new hazardous air pollutant standards. If
successful, the recovery system will not only reduce emissions, but also the
recovered material can be reused as feed material and improve plant efficiency.
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