Scope of waste gas chemicals reference document still to be defined

A new reference document (BREF), the Waste Gas Chemicals (WGC) one, is currently under preparation. BREFs aim at determining the best available techniques -and associated emission levels (BAT-AELs) that chemical sites must comply with under the Industrial Emissions Directive.  The new BREF will cover all the emissions of the chemical industry except the ones that have already been addressed in the previous ones.

Discussions are currently ongoing to define the scope of the WGC BREF. Large volume inorganic processes are expected to be excluded from the WGC BREF. They will be tackled in the revision of the BREF on Large Volume Inorganic Chemicals (LVIC) like ammonia, acids and fertilisers. However, polymers will be included in it.

The WGC BREF will not result in new BAT-AELs for ethylene crackers. Therefore, no data collection will be required for them except for diffuse emissions and/or emissions from storage. However, there is still some uncertainty on whether data should be collected for aromatics furnaces to determine their BAT-AELs. The data of Large Volatile Organic Compounds (LVOC) BREF were such that no it was not possible to draw conclusions on BAT-AELs.