FLARE MONITORING
Mantis™ & Mantis Lite™
all-in-one, comprehensive flare monitors
Industry-Leading Flare Monitoring Products
It has been a long-standing technological challenge to monitor or measure the combustion efficiency (CE) or destruction efficiency (DE), also referred to as destruction and removal efficiency (DRE), of industrial flares. Because a flare combusts waste gases in open air, conventional emission monitoring instruments cannot be utilized. The current practice is to monitor flow and composition of gases sent to the flare and assume a destruction efficiency above or below a target, typically 98% DE, based on surrogate parameters derived from these indirect measurements. The results are binary – above or below the target. Such binary results do not meet the needs of certain environmental programs such as Oil and Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP) 2.0 Level 4. In addition to the poor data quality, implementing these indirect measurement methods is costly because multiple in-line instruments must be installed and synchronized to derive a surrogate compliance parameter such as Combustion Zone Net Heating Value (NHVcz).
The following sections details each of these products.
More information on Mantis™ and Mantis Lite™ is available on the right panel of this page under Resources.
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Mantis™
Providence Photonics has met this technological challenge by developing an innovative flare monitoring device called Mantis™. This patented technology utilizes Video Imaging Spectro-Radiometry (VISR) to provide unprecedented capabilities for direct, remote, and continuous flare monitoring. The Mantis™ VISR flare monitor can be installed anywhere from 100 to 2,000 feet from the flare and will continuously and autonomously monitor flare performance metrics, including:
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Combustion Efficiency (CE) and Destruction Efficiency (DE)
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Smoke Index (SI)
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Flame Footprint (FF)
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Fractional Heat Release (FH)
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Flame Stability (FS)
Mantis™ can obtain measurements 20 to 30 times per second and will average the results into a 1-second, 1-minute, or user-specified data interval. In addition to demonstrating environmental compliance, Mantis™ data can be tied directly to the facility distributed control system (DCS) or programmable logic controller (PLC) to enable real-time adjustments of flare operations. The immediate feedback of a Mantis™ flare monitor will allow the operator to optimize flare efficiency, minimize unnecessary fuel or steam usage, and reduce operating expenses. With the real-time availability of both CE and SI metrics, Mantis™ offers the first and only practical mechanism for flare operators to achieve the operation mode known as the “incipient smoke point”, which typically has the highest combustion efficiency without causing visible emissions.
More information on Mantis Lite™ is available on the right panel of this page under Resources.
Mantis Lite™
Following the success of Mantis™, Providence Photonics has developed a more cost-effective flare monitor called Mantis Lite™. The capabilities of Mantis Lite™ largely overlap with that of Mantis™. The main difference is that Mantis Lite™ measures flare NHVcz (or NHVdil for air assisted flares), which is the regulatory compliance parameter. This makes Mantis Lite™ very suitable for compliance monitoring. The U.S. EPA has approved Mantis Lite™ as a Broadly Applicable Approved Alternative Test Method ALT-156 for flares subject to NSPS Subpart OOOOb. When Mantis Lite™ is used for monitoring NHVcz/NHVdil, it also monitors visible emissions and the presence of a pilot flame, greatly simplifying the compliance with OOOOb and reducing the cost of compliance. In addition, Mantis Lite™ can measure flare DE by using its measured combustion index (CI) to derive flare DE in multiple brackets (92%, 95%, 98%, 99%, and 99.5%) at a 1-second interval.
More information on Mantis Lite™ is available on the right panel of this page under Resources.