THERMAL OXIDATION APPARATUS, CONTROL, AND ASSOCIATED METHODS

Abstract

Example thermal oxidation apparatus, control, and associated methods are disclosed herein. An example apparatus includes a pump fluidly couplable to a pipe, the pump including a nozzle at a first end of the pump, a second end of the pump open to atmosphere, an air compressor fluidly coupled to the nozzle, and a thermal oxidizer disposed in the pump between the first end and the second end, the air compressor to provide air to the nozzle to cause suction of gas from the pipe, the thermal oxidizer to convert methane in the gas to carbon dioxide and water vapor to be vented from the second end of the pump.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising: a pump fluidly couplable to a pipe, the pump including a nozzle at a first end of the pump, a second end of the pump open to atmosphere; an air compressor fluidly coupled to the nozzle; and a thermal oxidizer disposed in the pump between the first end and the second end, the air compressor to provide air to the nozzle to cause suction of gas from the pipe, the thermal oxidizer to convert methane in the gas to carbon dioxide and water vapor to be vented from the second end of the pump.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, further including an elbow fluidly couplable between the pump and the pipe.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the thermal oxidizer includes ceramic material disposed in the pump.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the thermal oxidizer includes conductive coils, electrical current to pass through the conductive coils to heat the ceramic material to a threshold temperature.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the nozzle includes a tapered portion, a diameter of the nozzle decreasing along the tapered portion toward the second end of the pump.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, further including a meter operatively couplable to the pipe, the meter to measure at least one of a pressure or a concentration of the gas in the pipe, the thermal oxidizer and the air compressor to operate based on the measured at least one of the pressure or the concentration.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, further including a fluid evacuation system operatively couplable to the pipe, the fluid evacuation system to evacuate an amount of the gas from the pipe prior to operation of the thermal oxidizer and the air compressor.

8. A system comprising: meter interface circuitry to determine, based on data from a meter operatively couplable to a pipe, a parameter of gas in the pipe; air controller circuitry to cause an air compressor to provide air to a nozzle, the nozzle at a first end of a pump fluidly couplable to the pipe, a second end of the pump open to atmosphere, the air to cause suction of the gas from the pipe; and oxidizer controller circuitry to cause operation of a thermal oxidizer disposed in the pump between the first and second ends, the thermal oxidizer to convert methane in the gas to carbon dioxide and water vapor to be vented from the second end of the pump.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the parameter of the gas includes at least one of a pressure of the gas or a concentration of the gas in the pipe.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the air controller circuitry is to cause the air compressor to provide the air in response to the meter interface circuitry determining that the parameter of the gas does not satisfy a threshold.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the air controller circuitry is to shut off the air compressor in response to the meter interface circuitry determining that the parameter of the gas satisfies the threshold.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the oxidizer controller circuitry is to cause operation of the thermal oxidizer by causing an electrical current to pass through coils of the thermal oxidizer, the coils to heat ceramic material of the thermal oxidizer.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the air controller circuitry is to cause the air compressor to provide the air in response to the oxidizer controller circuitry determining that a temperature of the ceramic material satisfies a threshold temperature.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein the air controller circuitry is to cause the air compressor to provide the air in response to a fluid evacuation system evacuating an amount of the gas from the pipe.

15. A method comprising: determining, based on data from a meter operatively couplable to a pipe, a parameter of gas in the pipe; causing an air compressor to provide air to a nozzle, the nozzle at a first end of a pump fluidly couplable to the pipe, a second end of the pump open to atmosphere, the air to cause suction of the gas from the pipe; and causing operation of a thermal oxidizer disposed in the pump between the first and second ends, the thermal oxidizer to convert methane in the gas to carbon dioxide and water vapor to be vented from the second end of the pump.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the parameter of the gas includes at least one of a pressure of the gas or a concentration of the gas in the pipe.

17. The method of claim 15, further including causing the air compressor to provide the air in response to determining that the parameter of the gas does not satisfy a threshold.

18. The method of claim 17, further including shutting off the air compressor in response to determining that the parameter of the gas satisfies the threshold.

19. The method of claim 15, further including causing operation of the thermal oxidizer by causing an electrical current to pass through coils of the thermal oxidizer, the coils to heat ceramic material of the thermal oxidizer.

20. The method of claim 19, further including causing the air compressor to provide the air in response to determining that a temperature of the ceramic material satisfies a threshold temperature.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0004] FIG. 1 illustrates a known venting setup implemented on an example pipe.

[0005] FIG. 2 illustrates an example fluid evacuation system implemented on the example pipe of FIG. 1.

[0006] FIG. 3 illustrates an example thermal oxidization system to perform an emission conversion procedure on the example pipe of FIGS. 1 and/or 2.

[0007] FIG. 4 is a flowchart representative of instructions which may be executed to implement an emission conversion procedure as described in connection with FIG. 3.

[0008] FIG. 5 is a flowchart representative of example machine readable instructions and/or example operations that may be executed by example processor circuitry to implement an example control system of FIG. 3.

[0009] FIG. 6A is a schematic illustration of the example fluid evacuation system of FIG. 2.

[0010] FIG. 6B illustrates one of the example compressor units of FIG. 6A configured for electrical actuation.

[0011] FIG. 6C illustrates a perspective view of an example linear actuator of FIG. 6B.

[0012] FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an example processing platform including processor circuitry structured to execute the example machine readable instructions and/or the example operations of FIG. 5 to implement the example control system of FIG. 3.

[0013] FIG. 8 is a block diagram of an example implementation of the programmable circuitry of FIG. 7.

[0014] FIG. 9 is a block diagram of another example implementation of the programmable circuitry of FIG. 7.

[0015] The figures are not to scale. Instead, the thickness of the layers or regions may be enlarged in the drawings. In general, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawing(s) and accompanying written description to refer to the same or like parts. As used in this patent, stating that any part (e.g., a layer, film, area, region, or plate) is in any way on (e.g., positioned on, located on, disposed on, or formed on, etc.) another part, indicates that the referenced part is either in contact with the other part, or that the referenced part is above the other part with one or more intermediate part(s) located therebetween. Connection references (e.g., attached, coupled, connected, and joined) are to be construed broadly and may include intermediate members between a collection of elements and relative movement between elements unless otherwise indicated. As such, connection references do not necessarily infer that two elements are directly connected and in fixed relation to each other. Stating that any part is in contact with another part means that there is no intermediate part between the two parts. Although the figures show layers and regions with clean lines and boundaries, some or all of these lines and/or boundaries may be idealized. In reality, the boundaries and/or lines may be unobservable, blended, and/or irregular.

[0016] Descriptors first, second, third, etc. are used herein when identifying multiple elements or components which may be referred to separately. Unless otherwise specified or understood based on their context of use, such descriptors are not intended to impute any meaning of priority, physical order or arrangement in a list, or ordering in time but are merely used as labels for referring to multiple elements or components separately for ease of understanding the disclosed examples. In some examples, the descriptor first may be used to refer to an element in the detailed description, while the same element may be referred to in a claim with a different descriptor such as second or third. In such instances, it should be understood that such descriptors are used merely for ease of referencing multiple elements or components.

[0017] As used herein, the phrase in communication, including variations thereof, encompasses direct communication and/or indirect communication through one or more intermediary components, and does not require direct physical (e.g., wired) communication and/or constant communication, but rather additionally includes selective communication at periodic intervals, scheduled intervals, aperiodic intervals, and/or one-time events.

[0018] As used herein, programmable circuitry is defined to include (i) one or more special purpose electrical circuits (e.g., an application specific circuit (ASIC)) structured to perform specific operation(s) and including one or more semiconductor-based logic devices (e.g., electrical hardware implemented by one or more transistors), and/or (ii) one or more general purpose semiconductor-based electrical circuits programmable with instructions to perform specific functions(s) and/or operation(s) and including one or more semiconductor-based logic devices (e.g., electrical hardware implemented by one or more transistors). Examples of programmable circuitry include programmable microprocessors such as Central Processor Units (CPUs) that may execute first instructions to perform one or more operations and/or functions, Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) that may be programmed with second instructions to cause configuration and/or structuring of the FPGAs to instantiate one or more operations and/or functions corresponding to the first instructions, Graphics Processor Units (GPUs) that may execute first instructions to perform one or more operations and/or functions, Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) that may execute first instructions to perform one or more operations and/or functions, XPUs, Network Processing Units (NPUs) one or more microcontrollers that may execute first instructions to perform one or more operations and/or functions and/or integrated circuits such as Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). For example, an XPU may be implemented by a heterogeneous computing system including multiple types of programmable circuitry (e.g., one or more FPGAs, one or more CPUs, one or more GPUs, one or more NPUs, one or more DSPs, etc., and/or any combination(s) thereof), and orchestration technology (e.g., application programming interface(s) (API(s)) that may assign computing task(s) to whichever one(s) of the multiple types of programmable circuitry is/are suited and available to perform the computing task(s).

[0019] As used herein integrated circuit/circuitry is defined as one or more semiconductor packages containing one or more circuit elements such as transistors, capacitors, inductors, resistors, current paths, diodes, etc. For example an integrated circuit may be implemented as one or more of an ASIC, an FPGA, a chip, a microchip, programmable circuitry, a semiconductor substrate coupling multiple circuit elements, a system on chip (SoC), etc.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0020] Buildings, plants, factories, and other facilities commonly use natural gas for various purposes such as heating, power generation, transportation, etc. Pipelines are used to transport the natural gas between one or more locations. In some instances, the natural gas is evacuated from a pipe prior to maintenance and/or cleaning of the pipe. For example, a decommissioning procedure can be performed to remove the pipe from service. During the decommissioning procedure, one or more valves are opened to vent the natural gas from the pipe and/or introduce air into the pipe. Additionally or alternatively, air movers (e.g., pumps, etc.) are used to evacuate the gas from the pipe, and the evacuated gas is emitted directly to the atmosphere. Natural gas is composed of methane and/or one or more other constituent gases (e.g., carbon dioxide, water vapor, ethane, propane, etc.) that, when vented to the atmosphere, can be harmful to the environment and may pose a safety concern due to a risk of accidental combustion.

[0021] In some instances, thermal oxidizers are used to convert methane in the natural gas into carbon dioxide and other constituent gases prior to venting. Some thermal oxidizers (e.g., direct-fired thermal oxidizers, etc.) include a burner and a combustion chamber. In such thermal oxidizers, natural gas is mixed with air in the combustion chamber, and the burner causes combustion of the gas-air mixture to convert the methane into constituent gases. However, typical burners and/or thermal oxidizers do not create suction on a pipe. As such, additional devices (e.g., pumps, air movers, etc.) are typically implemented on the pipe to evacuate the gas therefrom, and/or additional gases (e.g., air, etc.) are introduced into the pipe to displace the gas from the pipe.

[0022] Examples disclosed herein use an example thermal oxidizer (e.g., a thermal oxidation device) to reduce emissions of harmful gases to the atmosphere during venting and/or evacuation of a pipe. The thermal oxidizer is implemented within an example pump (e.g., a Venturi pump) fluidly coupled to an outlet of the pipe. Furthermore, an example air compressor is operatively and/or fluidly coupled to a nozzle at a first end of the pump, and a second end of the pump is open to the atmosphere. In some examples, when the pipe is open to the atmosphere and a pressure inside the pipe is 0 pounds-per-square inch (psi) gauge (psig), the gas remaining in the pipe can be displaced by vacuuming the remaining gas therefrom. For example, the air compressor provides a flow of air through the nozzle to cause suction of the gas from the pipe to the pump. The gas flows to the second end of the pump through the thermal oxidizer before venting to the atmosphere. In some examples, a temperature inside the thermal oxidizer is increased up to a threshold temperature (e.g., 1000 degrees Celsius ( C.), etc.). In such examples, the high temperature causes a chemical reaction between a ceramic material of the thermal oxidizer and methane in the gas flowing therethrough. During the chemical reaction, oxidation of the methane converts the methane to carbon dioxide and water vapor, which are then released to the atmosphere.

[0023] Advantageously, examples disclosed herein reduce methane emissions to the atmosphere, thus reducing harm to the environment and/or reducing risk of accidental combustion. Furthermore, by combining the processes of evacuation and methane conversion, examples disclosed herein reduce a number of parts required compared to when evacuation and methane conversion are performed separately (e.g., using separate thermal oxidizers and/or air movers, etc.).

[0024] FIG. 1 illustrates a known venting setup 100 implemented on an example pipe 102. In some examples, the known venting setup 100 is used in a decommissioning procedure, during which gas (e.g., natural gas) is vented from the pipe 102 so that the pipe 102 can be removed from service. In the illustrated example of FIG. 1, the pipe 102 includes a first valve (e.g., ball valve) 104 and a second valve 106 coupled at a first end 108 and a second end 110 of the pipe 102. The example pipe 102 further includes an example inlet 112 and an example vent (e.g., an outlet, a fluid outlet) 114. In the illustrated example of FIG. 1, the inlet 112 is fluidly coupled to an example air supply 116 and the vent 114 is open to the atmosphere. In this example, an example meter 118 is operatively coupled to the pipe 102 to measure a parameter (e.g., a pressure and/or a gas concentration) therein.

[0025] Prior to decommissioning, the example pipe 102 is filled with pressurized gas (e.g., natural gas). For example, the pipe 102 is connected to a pipeline system via the first end 108 and/or the second end 110. In some examples, the gas flows through the pipe 102 to and/or from the rest of the pipeline system. In some examples, a decommissioning procedure is performed on the pipe 102 to stop gas service in the pipeline system and/or remove the pipe 102 from service (e.g., during cleaning, repair, maintenance, etc.).

[0026] To begin the decommissioning procedure, the pipe 102 is sealed at both ends by closing the first valve 104 and the second valve 106, thus preventing gas from exiting or further entering the pipe 102. In response to the pipe 102 being sealed off from the rest of the pipeline system, the vent 114 can be opened so that the gas from the pipe 102 is allowed to exit the pipe 102 via the vent 114. In some examples, the air supply 116 is turned on so that air can be pumped from the air supply 116 to the pipe 102, thus displacing the gas therefrom. However, in other examples, the air supply 116 is not turned on and/or is not coupled to the inlet 112. In such examples, the inlet 112 can similarly be opened to the atmosphere to vent gas from the pipe 102 and/or enable air from the atmosphere to enter the pipe 102.

[0027] As gas exits the pipe 102, the gas mixes with the air in the atmosphere to create a gas-air mixture at and/or near the vent 114. In some examples, the gas flows from the vent 114 until a pressure inside the pipe 102 reaches 0 psig. In some examples, some of the gas remains in the pipe 102 at the pressure of 0 psig and mixes with air entering the pipe 102 from the atmosphere. In such examples, the gas-mixture in and/or outside of the pipe 102 can pose a safety concern due to risk of accidental ignition of the gas-air mixture.

[0028] In the illustrated example of FIG. 1, the example meter 118 is implemented on the pipe 102 to measure a pressure of gas inside the pipe 102. Additionally or alternatively, the meter 118 can be configured to measure the gas concentration of the gas-air mixture inside the pipe 102. In some examples, the meter 118 can display a value of the pressure and/or the measured gas concentration. In some examples, during the decommissioning procedure, the gas is vented from the pipe 102 until a desired pressure (e.g., 0 psig) and/or a desired gas concentration (e.g., 0%, 1%, 5%, etc.) in the pipe 102 is reached. In the illustrated example, when the meter 118 measures and/or displays the desired pressure and/or the desired gas concentration, an operator can close the vent 114 and the pipe 102 can be removed from the first valve 104 and the second valve 106.

[0029] FIG. 2 illustrates an example fluid evacuation system (e.g., fluid compression evacuation system) 200 used in connection with examples disclosed herein. In some examples, the fluid evacuation system 200 can be used to evacuate fluid (e.g., gas) from the pipe 102 instead of the known venting setup 100 of FIG. 1. During decommissioning, the example fluid evacuation system 200 is implemented on the pipe 102 and coupled to the vent 114. In the illustrated example of FIG. 2, the vent 114 is fluidly coupled to the fluid evacuation system 200 instead of being open to the atmosphere. The example fluid evacuation system 200 compresses and/or evacuates gas from the pipe 102 so that the gas is not vented to the atmosphere.

[0030] As described in connection with FIG. 1 above, decommissioning of the pipe 102 begins with sealing the pipe 102 at both ends by closing the first valve 104 and the second valve 106. In the illustrated example of FIG. 2, the vent 114 is opened so that the gas from the pipe 102 can enter the fluid evacuation system 200. In the illustrated example of FIG. 2, the meter 118 is configured to measure a gauge pressure (e.g., atmospheric pressure) of the gas inside the pipe 102. In some examples, the gauge pressure is measured in pounds per square inch gauge (psig). In other examples, the meter 118 can be configured to measure an absolute pressure of the fluid, where the absolute pressure can be measured in pounds per square inch absolute (psia). In other examples, a different unit of the gauge pressure and/or the absolute pressure can be used.

[0031] In contrast to the decommissioning procedure described in FIG. 1, an emission-less decommissioning procedure is described in connection with FIG. 2. In FIG. 2, the fluid evacuation system 200 is turned on and begins evacuating and/or compressing the gas from the pipe 102 via the vent 114. In some examples, as the gas is evacuated from the pipe 102, the gauge pressure measured by the meter 118 decreases. In some examples, the gas evacuated by the fluid evacuation system 200 can be compressed and stored, and the compressed gas can be provided to a different location in a pipeline system. In some examples, in response to the gauge pressure measured by the meter 118 reaching a desired gauge pressure (e.g., 0 psig), the fluid evacuation system 200 can be shut off and/or removed. In some examples, when the gauge pressure inside the pipe 102 is at the desired gauge pressure of 0 psig, some of the gas remains in the pipe 102. In such examples, the remaining gas is to be removed from the pipe 102 prior to removal of the pipe 102 from the pipeline system.

[0032] FIG. 3 illustrates an example thermal oxidization system 300 to perform an example emission conversion procedure on the example pipe 102 of FIGS. 1 and/or 2. In the illustrated example of FIG. 3, the thermal oxidation system 300 includes an example pump (e.g., a Venturi pump) 302 including an example pump body 304 fluidly coupled to the vent 114 via an example elbow 306 and an example valve 307. In some examples, the valve 307 can include a ball valve, a globe valve, and/or a different type of valve. In this example, the valve 307 is manually operable by an operator to move between a closed position in which gas from the pipe 102 is restricted and/or prevented from flowing to the pump 302, and an open position in which the gas form the pipe 102 can flow to the pump 302. In some examples, the valve 307 can be pneumatically and/or electrically actuated to move between the open and closed positions. In the example of FIG. 3, the pump body 304 includes an example port 308 fluidly coupled to the elbow 306, where the port 308 is between a first end 310 and a second end 312 of the pump body 304. Furthermore, the pump 302 includes an example nozzle 314 disposed in the first end 310 and fluidly coupled to an example air compressor 316. In this example, the nozzle 314 includes an example tapered portion 318 at which a diameter of the nozzle 314 decreases toward the second end 312. Furthermore, an example thermal oxidizer (e.g., thermal oxidation device) 320 is implemented and/or otherwise placed in the pump body 304 downstream of the port 308 and the nozzle 314.

[0033] In some examples, the valve 307 moves to an open position to enable venting and/or evacuation of the gas from the pipe 102. In some examples, after venting and/or evacuation of the gas from the pipe 102 (e.g., to a gauge pressure of 0 psig), the thermal oxidation system 300 can be used to remove remaining gas from the pipe 102 via an emission conversion procedure. In the illustrated example of FIG. 3, the thermal oxidizer 320 is heated to a threshold temperature (e.g., 1000 degrees Fahrenheit ( F.), 1200 F., 1400 F., 1500 F., etc.) at which oxidation of methane can occur. In some examples, the thermal oxidizer 320 is heated by passing electrical current though coils (e.g., conductive coils) in the thermal oxidizer 320. In this example, the thermal oxidizer 320 includes ceramic material (e.g., ceramic balls and/or spheres) disposed in the pump body 304 and through which fluid (e.g., gas or air) from the air compressor 316 and/or the pipe 102 can flow. While ceramic balls and/or spheres are used in this example, a different shape for the ceramic material may be used instead. In some examples, heating of the thermal oxidizer 320 includes heating the ceramic material to the threshold temperature. In some examples, the thermal oxidizer 320 includes an example display to indicate and/or present a measured temperature of the ceramic material to an operator and/or indicate whether the measured temperature has reached the threshold temperature.

[0034] When the thermal oxidizer 320 is at the threshold temperature, the operator can turn on the air compressor 316 to cause a flow of air to the nozzle 314. In the illustrated example of FIG. 3, as the air flows through the tapered portion 318 of the nozzle 314, a velocity of the air through the nozzle 314 increases and a pressure of the air is reduced. When the air exits the nozzle 314 and flows toward the second end 312, a change in pressure inside the pump body 304 causes suction of gas from the pipe 102 via the port 308. The gas from the pipe 102 mixes with the air exiting the nozzle 314, and the gas-air mixture flows to the second end 312 of the pump body 304 via the thermal oxidizer 320.

[0035] In the illustrated example of FIG. 3, when the gas-air mixture flows through the thermal oxidizer 320, methane in the gas chemically reacts with the heated ceramic material in the thermal oxidizer 320. In some examples, as a result of the chemical reaction, the methane is converted into carbon dioxide, water vapor, and/or one or more other gases. In the illustrated example of FIG. 3, the second end 312 of the pump body 304 is open to atmosphere, such that the carbon dioxide, water vapor, and/or other gases are vented to the atmosphere. By converting the methane to non-combustible gases (e.g., carbon dioxide and water vapor) prior to venting, the thermal oxidation system 300 of FIG. 3 reduces a risk of accidental combustion and/or explosion during decommissioning of the pipe 102.

[0036] In the illustrated example of FIG. 3, an operator can manually turn on or shut off the air compressor 316 and/or the thermal oxidizer 320 (e.g., by using a switch, by opening or closing a control valve, etc.). In such examples, the operator reads a pressure and/or the gas concentration displayed on the meter 118 and, based on the pressure and/or the gas concentration, determines whether to turn on or shut off the air compressor 316 and/or the thermal oxidizer 320. In some examples, the meter 118, the air compressor 316, and/or the thermal oxidizer 320 can be communicatively coupled to example control system circuitry 322 and/or another controller, processor, etc., and controllable via command signals sent from the computer system, controller, and/or processor, etc. For example, in the illustrated example of FIG. 3, the example control system circuitry 322 includes an example air controller circuitry 324 communicatively and/or operatively coupled to the air compressor 316, an example oxidizer controller circuitry 326 communicatively and/or operatively coupled to the thermal oxidizer 320, and an example meter interface circuitry 328 communicatively and/or operatively coupled to the meter 118.

[0037] In the illustrated example of FIG. 3, the meter 118 measures and/or displays a pressure inside the pipe 102 after gas has been vented and/or evacuated from the pipe 102 (e.g., during a decommissioning procedure). In such examples, in response to the meter interface circuitry 328 determining the measured pressure is below a threshold pressure (e.g., 1 psig, 0.5 psig, etc.), the oxidizer controller circuitry 326 turns on the thermal oxidizer 320 to heat the thermal oxidizer 320 to the threshold temperature. In response to the oxidizer controller circuitry 326 determining that the thermal oxidizer 320 is at the threshold temperature, the air controller circuitry 324 turns on the air compressor 316 to direct flow of air to the nozzle 314 and cause suction of gas from the pipe 102. In some examples, the meter interface circuitry 328 measures and/or monitors the concentration of gas in the pipe 102. In response to the meter interface circuitry 328 determining that the gas concentration is at or below a threshold concentration (e.g., 0%, 1%, 5%, etc.), the air controller circuitry 324 shuts off the flow of air from the air compressor 316 and/or the oxidizer controller circuitry 326 shuts off the thermal oxidizer 320.

[0038] While an example manner of implementing the control system circuitry 322 of FIG. 3 is illustrated in FIG. 3, one or more of the elements, processes, and/or devices illustrated in FIG. 3 may be combined, divided, re-arranged, omitted, eliminated, and/or implemented in any other way. Further, the example air controller circuitry 324, the example oxidizer controller circuitry 326, the example meter interface circuitry 328 and/or, more generally, the example control system circuitry 322 of FIG. 3, may be implemented by hardware, software, firmware, and/or any combination of hardware, software, and/or firmware. Thus, for example, any of the example air controller circuitry 324, the example oxidizer controller circuitry 326, the example meter interface circuitry 328, and/or, more generally, the example control system circuitry 322, could be implemented by processor circuitry, analog circuit(s), digital circuit(s), logic circuit(s), programmable processor(s), programmable microcontroller(s), graphics processing unit(s) (GPU(s)), digital signal processor(s) (DSP(s)), application specific integrated circuit(s) (ASIC(s)), programmable logic device(s) (PLD(s)), and/or field programmable logic device(s) (FPLD(s)) such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). When reading any of the apparatus or system claims of this patent to cover a purely software and/or firmware implementation, at least one of the example air controller circuitry 324, the example oxidizer controller circuitry 326, and/or the example meter interface circuitry 328 is/are hereby expressly defined to include a non-transitory computer readable storage device or storage disk such as a memory, a digital versatile disk (DVD), a compact disk (CD), a Blu-ray disk, etc., including the software and/or firmware. Further still, the example control system circuitry 322 of FIG. 3 may include one or more elements, processes, and/or devices in addition to, or instead of, those illustrated in FIG. 3, and/or may include more than one of any or all of the illustrated elements, processes and devices.

[0039] A flowchart representative of example hardware logic circuitry, machine readable instructions, hardware implemented state machines, and/or any combination thereof for implementing the control system circuitry 322 of FIG. 3 is shown in FIG. 5. The machine readable instructions may be one or more executable programs or portion(s) of an executable program for execution by processor circuitry, such as the processor circuitry 612 shown in the example processor platform 600 discussed below in connection with FIG. 6. The program may be embodied in software stored on one or more non-transitory computer readable storage media such as a CD, a floppy disk, a hard disk drive (HDD), a DVD, a Blu-ray disk, a volatile memory (e.g., Random Access Memory (RAM) of any type, etc.), or a non-volatile memory (e.g., FLASH memory, an HDD, etc.) associated with processor circuitry located in one or more hardware devices, but the entire program and/or parts thereof could alternatively be executed by one or more hardware devices other than the processor circuitry and/or embodied in firmware or dedicated hardware. The machine readable instructions may be distributed across multiple hardware devices and/or executed by two or more hardware devices (e.g., a server and a client hardware device). For example, the client hardware device may be implemented by an endpoint client hardware device (e.g., a hardware device associated with a user) or an intermediate client hardware device (e.g., a radio access network (RAN) gateway that may facilitate communication between a server and an endpoint client hardware device). Similarly, the non-transitory computer readable storage media may include one or more mediums located in one or more hardware devices. Further, although the example program is described with reference to the flowchart illustrated in FIG. 5, many other methods of implementing the example control system circuitry 322 may alternatively be used. For example, the order of execution of the blocks may be changed, and/or some of the blocks described may be changed, eliminated, or combined. Additionally or alternatively, any or all of the blocks may be implemented by one or more hardware circuits (e.g., processor circuitry, discrete and/or integrated analog and/or digital circuitry, an FPGA, an ASIC, a comparator, an operational-amplifier (op-amp), a logic circuit, etc.) structured to perform the corresponding operation without executing software or firmware. The processor circuitry may be distributed in different network locations and/or local to one or more hardware devices (e.g., a single-core processor (e.g., a single core central processor unit (CPU)), a multi-core processor (e.g., a multi-core CPU), etc.) in a single machine, multiple processors distributed across multiple servers of a server rack, multiple processors distributed across one or more server racks, a CPU and/or a FPGA located in the same package (e.g., the same integrated circuit (IC) package or in two or more separate housings, etc.).

[0040] The machine readable instructions described herein may be stored in one or more of a compressed format, an encrypted format, a fragmented format, a compiled format, an executable format, a packaged format, etc. Machine readable instructions as described herein may be stored as data or a data structure (e.g., as portions of instructions, code, representations of code, etc.) that may be utilized to create, manufacture, and/or produce machine executable instructions. For example, the machine readable instructions may be fragmented and stored on one or more storage devices and/or computing devices (e.g., servers) located at the same or different locations of a network or collection of networks (e.g., in the cloud, in edge devices, etc.). The machine readable instructions may require one or more of installation, modification, adaptation, updating, combining, supplementing, configuring, decryption, decompression, unpacking, distribution, reassignment, compilation, etc., in order to make them directly readable, interpretable, and/or executable by a computing device and/or other machine. For example, the machine readable instructions may be stored in multiple parts, which are individually compressed, encrypted, and/or stored on separate computing devices, wherein the parts when decrypted, decompressed, and/or combined form a set of machine executable instructions that implement one or more operations that may together form a program such as that described herein.

[0041] In another example, the machine readable instructions may be stored in a state in which they may be read by processor circuitry, but require addition of a library (e.g., a dynamic link library (DLL)), a software development kit (SDK), an application programming interface (API), etc., in order to execute the machine readable instructions on a particular computing device or other device. In another example, the machine readable instructions may need to be configured (e.g., settings stored, data input, network addresses recorded, etc.) before the machine readable instructions and/or the corresponding program(s) can be executed in whole or in part. Thus, machine readable media, as used herein, may include machine readable instructions and/or program(s) regardless of the particular format or state of the machine readable instructions and/or program(s) when stored or otherwise at rest or in transit.

[0042] The machine readable instructions described herein can be represented by any past, present, or future instruction language, scripting language, programming language, etc. For example, the machine readable instructions may be represented using any of the following languages: C, C++, Java, C#, Perl, Python, JavaScript, HyperText Markup Language (HTML), Structured Query Language (SQL), Swift, etc.

[0043] As mentioned above, the example operations of FIG. 5 may be implemented using executable instructions (e.g., computer and/or machine readable instructions) stored on one or more non-transitory computer and/or machine readable media such as optical storage devices, magnetic storage devices, an HDD, a flash memory, a read-only memory (ROM), a CD, a DVD, a cache, a RAM of any type, a register, and/or any other storage device or storage disk in which information is stored for any duration (e.g., for extended time periods, permanently, for brief instances, for temporarily buffering, and/or for caching of the information). As used herein, the terms non-transitory computer readable medium and non-transitory computer readable storage medium is expressly defined to include any type of computer readable storage device and/or storage disk and to exclude propagating signals and to exclude transmission media.

[0044] Including and comprising (and all forms and tenses thereof) are used herein to be open ended terms. Thus, whenever a claim employs any form of include or comprise (e.g., comprises, includes, comprising, including, having, etc.) as a preamble or within a claim recitation of any kind, it is to be understood that additional elements, terms, etc., may be present without falling outside the scope of the corresponding claim or recitation. As used herein, when the phrase at least is used as the transition term in, for example, a preamble of a claim, it is open-ended in the same manner as the term comprising and including are open ended. The term and/or when used, for example, in a form such as A, B, and/or C refers to any combination or subset of A, B, C such as (1) A alone, (2) B alone, (3) C alone, (4) A with B, (5) A with C, (6) B with C, or (7) A with B and with C. As used herein in the context of describing structures, components, items, objects and/or things, the phrase at least one of A and B is intended to refer to implementations including any of (1) at least one A, (2) at least one B, or (3) at least one A and at least one B. Similarly, as used herein in the context of describing structures, components, items, objects and/or things, the phrase at least one of A or B is intended to refer to implementations including any of (1) at least one A, (2) at least one B, or (3) at least one A and at least one B. As used herein in the context of describing the performance or execution of processes, instructions, actions, activities and/or steps, the phrase at least one of A and B is intended to refer to implementations including any of (1) at least one A, (2) at least one B, or (3) at least one A and at least one B. Similarly, as used herein in the context of describing the performance or execution of processes, instructions, actions, activities and/or steps, the phrase at least one of A or B is intended to refer to implementations including any of (1) at least one A, (2) at least one B, or (3) at least one A and at least one B.

[0045] As used herein, singular references (e.g., a, an, first, second, etc.) do not exclude a plurality. The term a or an object, as used herein, refers to one or more of that object. The terms a (or an), one or more, and at least one are used interchangeably herein. Furthermore, although individually listed, a plurality of means, elements or method actions may be implemented by, e.g., the same entity or object. Additionally, although individual features may be included in different examples or claims, these may possibly be combined, and the inclusion in different examples or claims does not imply that a combination of features is not feasible and/or advantageous.

[0046] FIG. 4 is a flowchart representative of instructions 400 which may be executed to implement the emission conversion procedure on the pipe 102 as described in connection with FIG. 3. The instructions 400 begin as the pipe 102 is filled with gas and/or a gas-air mixture.

[0047] At block 402, the gas is vented and/or evacuated from the pipe 102. For example, an operator opens one or more valves (e.g., the valve 307 of FIG. 3) and/or vents (e.g., the example vent 114 of FIG. 1) to enable the gas to flow from the pipe 102. In some examples, the vent 114 is open to the atmosphere so that the gas is vented to the atmosphere. In other examples, the example fluid evacuation system 200 of FIG. 2 is fluidly and/or operatively coupled to the vent 114 and/or the valve 307 to evacuate the gas from the pipe 102. In some examples, the gas is evacuated and/or vented until the example meter 118 of FIG. 1 measures a threshold pressure (e.g., 0 psig, 1 psig, 5 psig, etc.) inside the pipe 102.

[0048] At block 404, the example pump 302 of FIG. 3 is fluidly coupled to the pipe 102. For example, the operator couples the elbow 306 to the example port 308 of FIG. 3 such that the gas can flow from the pipe 102 to the example pump body 304.

[0049] At block 406, the example air compressor 316 of FIG. 3 is fluidly coupled to the example nozzle 314 of the pump 302. For example, the operator couples the air compressor 316 to the nozzle 314 to enable flow of air from the air compressor 316 to the nozzle 314.

[0050] At block 408, the example thermal oxidizer 320 of FIG. 3 is placed in the pump body 304 between the first end 310 and the second end 312 of the pump body 304. For example, the thermal oxidizer 320 is placed downstream of the port 308 and the nozzle 314. In some examples, placing the thermal oxidizer 320 in the pump body 304 includes placing ceramic material (e.g., ceramic balls and/or spheres) in the pump body 304.

[0051] At block 410, the thermal oxidizer 320 is heated to at or above a threshold temperature (e.g., 1000 degrees Fahrenheit ( F.), 1200 F., 1400 F., 1500 F., etc.). For example, the operator turns on the thermal oxidizer 320 to provide an electrical current to coils of the thermal oxidizer 320. In such examples, the electrical current heats the coils and, thus, the ceramic material of the thermal oxidizer 320 to at or above the threshold temperature.

[0052] At block 412, the example air compressor 316 is turned on to enable flow of air to the nozzle 314 to cause suction of the gas from the pipe 102. For example, the flow of air from the nozzle 314 to the pump body 304 causes a change in pressure that pulls the gas from the pipe 102 to the pump body 304, where the gas mixes with the air exiting the nozzle 314.

[0053] At block 414, the thermal oxidizer 320 operates to convert methane in the gas-air mixture into carbon dioxide and water vapor. For example, as the gas-air mixture flows through the thermal oxidizer 320, the thermal oxidizer 320 is maintained at or above the threshold temperature to enable a chemical reaction to occur between the gas-air mixture and the ceramic material. As a result of the chemical reaction, the methane converts into carbon dioxide, water vapor, and/or one or more other gases.

[0054] At block 416, the carbon dioxide and the water vapor is vented to the atmosphere. For example, after exiting the thermal oxidizer 320, the carbon dioxide and the water vapor flows toward the second end 312 of the pump body 304 and exits to the atmosphere via the second end 312.

[0055] At block 418, the meter 118 is used to verify the pressure and/or the gas concentration in the pipe 102. For example, the meter 118 measures and/or displays the gas concentration and, in some examples, indicates whether the measured gas concentration satisfies a desired gas concentration (e.g., 0%, 1%, 5%, etc.). In other examples, the operator reads the measured gas concentration displayed by the meter 118 to determine whether the measured gas concentration satisfies the desired gas concentration. In some examples, the operator enables the flow of air from the air compressor 316 until the desired gas concentration in the pipe 102 is reached. Additionally or alternatively, the operator determines a measured pressure in the pipe 102 based on the meter 118, and determines whether the measured pressure satisfies a desired pressure (e.g., 0 psig, less than 1 psig, less than 5 psig, etc.). In some such examples, the operator enables the flow of air from the air compressor 316 until the desired pressure in the pipe 102 is achieved.

[0056] At block 420, the air compressor 316 and/or the thermal oxidizer 320 is shut off. For example, the operator shuts off the air compressor 316 to prevent further flow of air to the nozzle 314 and/or shuts off the thermal oxidizer 320 to prevent further heating thereof.

[0057] FIG. 5 is a flowchart representative of example machine readable instructions and/or example operations 500 that may be executed and/or instantiated by processor circuitry to implement the example control system circuitry 322 of FIG. 3. The machine readable instructions and/or operations 500 of FIG. 5 begin as the pipe 102 is vented and/or evacuated to a starting pressure (e.g., 0 psig).

[0058] At block 502, the example control system circuitry 322 causes heating of the example thermal oxidizer 320 of FIG. 3 to a threshold temperature (e.g., 1000 degrees Fahrenheit ( F.), 1200 F., 1400 F., 1500 F., etc.). For example, the example oxidizer controller circuitry 326 of FIG. 3 turns on the thermal oxidizer 320 to cause heating of ceramic material therein by, for example, providing electrical current through coils of the thermal oxidizer 320. In some examples, the oxidizer controller circuitry 326 enables heating of the thermal oxidizer 320 until a temperature of the ceramic material is at or above the threshold temperature.

[0059] At block 504, the example control system circuitry 322 directs a flow of air from the example air compressor 316 of the FIG. 3 to the example nozzle 314 of FIG. 3 to cause suction of gas from the pipe 102. For example, the example air controller circuitry 324 of FIG. 1 turns on the air compressor 316 to provide the flow of air to the nozzle 314. In such examples, the air exiting the nozzle 314 causes suction of the gas from the pipe 102 and mixes with the gas in the example pump body 304 of FIG. 3.

[0060] At block 506, the example control system circuitry 322 operates the thermal oxidizer 320 to convert methane in the gas-air mixture to carbon dioxide and water vapor. For example, the oxidizer controller circuitry 326 maintains the temperature of the thermal oxidizer 320 at the threshold temperature, such that the gas-air mixture flowing therethrough chemically reacts with ceramic material of the thermal oxidizer 320 to convert the methane in the gas-air mixture into carbon dioxide, water vapor, and/or one or more other gases.

[0061] At block 508, the example control system circuitry 322 obtains a measured gas concentration in the pipe 102. For example, the example meter interface circuitry 328 of FIG. 3 obtains the measured gas concentration from the example meter 118 of FIG. 3. Additionally or alternatively, the meter interface circuitry 328 obtains, from the meter 118, a measured pressure of the gas in the pipe 102.

[0062] At block 510, the example control system circuitry 322 determines whether the measured gas concentration in the pipe 102 satisfies a desired concentration (e.g., 0%, 1%, 5%, etc.) and/or whether the measured pressure in the pipe 102 satisfies a desired pressure (e.g., 0 psig, less than 1 psig, less than 5 psig, etc.). For example, the meter interface circuitry 328 determines whether the measured concentration is at or below the desired concentration and/or whether the measured pressure is at or below the desired pressure. In response to the meter interface circuitry 328 determining that the measured gas concentration does not satisfy the desired concentration and/or whether the measured pressure does not satisfy the desired pressure (e.g., block 510 returns a result of NO), control returns to block 504. Alternatively, in response to the meter interface circuitry 328 determining that the measured gas concentration satisfies the desired concentration and/or the measured pressure satisfies the desired pressure (e.g., block 510 returns a result of YES), control proceeds to block 512.

[0063] At block 512, the example control system circuitry 322 shuts off the air compressor 316 and/or the thermal oxidizer 320. For example, the air controller circuitry 324 shuts off the air compressor 316 to prevent further flow of air to the nozzle 314, and/or the oxidizer controller circuitry 326 shuts off the thermal oxidizer 320 to prevent further heating thereof.

[0064] FIG. 6A is a schematic illustration of the example fluid evacuation system 200 of FIG. 2. The example fluid evacuation system 200 is configured to transport fluid (e.g., gas) from a first location (e.g., the pipe 102 of FIGS. 1 and/or 2) to a second location (e.g., a storage unit, a location upstream or downstream of the pipe 102). The example fluid evacuation system 200 includes an example fluid intake 602 couplable to the pipe 102 and an example fluid discharge 604 couplable to the second location. Fluid is compressed by example compressor units 606A, 606B as the fluid flows from the fluid intake 602 to the fluid discharge 604. The compressor units 606A, 606B each include example compression pistons 608A, 608B implemented in example compression cylinders 610A, 610B, and an example air piston 612 implemented in an example air cylinder 614. The air cylinder 614 includes an example first chamber 616 and an example second chamber 618 coupled to an example air supply 620 via an example air control valve 622. The compression cylinders 610A, 610B include example third chambers 624A, 624B and example fourth chambers 626A, 626B coupled to the fluid intake 602 via inlet check valves 628A, and coupled to the fluid outlet via outlet check valves 628B.

[0065] In the illustrated example of FIG. 6A, fluid enters via the fluid intake 602 and flows to the compressor units 606A, 606B via example piping 630. The fluid enters the third chambers 624A, 624B and the fourth chambers 626A, 626B through the inlet check valves 628A. The inlet check valves 628A allow the fluid to flow unidirectionally from the fluid intake 602 to the compressor units 606A, 606B. The air control valve 622 also directs compressed air from the air supply 202 to enter the air cylinder 614. The air control valve 622 can alternate flow of the compressed air between the first chamber 616 and the second chamber 618. In the illustrated example of FIG. 6A, the air control valve 622 directs compressed air into the first chamber 616 in response to a first switch 629A being engaged, and directs compressed air into the second chamber 618 in response to a second switch 629B being engaged, where the first switch 629A and the second switch 629B are operatively coupled to the air control valve 622. In other examples, the air control valve 622 can switch a direction of flow of the compressed air based on a command and/or a signal from a computer and/or other processor communicatively coupled to the air control valve 622.

[0066] In the illustrated example of FIG. 6A, an under-pressure cutoff 631 is coupled to the piping 630 between the fluid intake 602 and the air control valve 622. In some examples, the under-pressure cutoff 631 can detect whether a pressure of the fluid in the piping 630 drops below a threshold pressure (e.g., cutoff pressure). In response to the under-pressure cutoff 631 determining that the pressure of the fluid has dropped below the cutoff pressure, the under-pressure cutoff 631 can send an air signal to the air control valve 622 to shut off the flow of compressed air into the compressor units 606A, 606B and, as such, prevent the compressor units 606A, 606B from further compressing the fluid.

[0067] In the illustrated example of FIG. 6A, in response to the air control valve 622 directing the compressed air to flow into the first chamber 616, the compressed air generates pressure on the air piston 612 to move the air piston 612 to the right (e.g., towards the second compression cylinder 610B). The air piston 612 is operatively coupled to the compression pistons 608A, 608B via an example rod 632, such that the compression pistons 608A, 608B move with the air piston 612. In response to the air piston 612 moving to the right and, thus, the compression pistons 608A, 608B moving to the right, the fluid in the fourth chambers 626A, 626B is compressed by the compression pistons 608A, 608B. Compressed fluid is expelled from the fourth chambers 626A, 626B and flows through the respective outlet check valves 628B towards the fluid discharge 604. The outlet check valves 628B allow the fluid to flow unidirectionally from the fluid intake 602 to the compressor units 606A, 606B.

[0068] In response to the air piston 612 being positioned to the right (in reference to the arrangement of FIG. 6A), the air piston 612 engages the second switch 629B coupled to the right side of the air cylinder 614. In response to the second switch 629B being engaged, the air control valve 622 stops the flow of compressed air to the first chamber 616 and directs the flow of compressed air to enter the second chamber 618. The compressed air from the first chamber 616 can be expelled to the atmosphere via air exhaust tubing 634. In some examples, the compressed air from the first chamber 616 can be used to cool the compressed fluid via an example heat exchanger 636 prior to the compressed air being expelled to the atmosphere.

[0069] In response to the air control valve 622 directing the flow of compressed air to enter the second chamber 618, the compressed air causes the air piston 612 and the compression pistons 608A, 608B to move to the left (e.g., toward the first compression cylinder 610A). The fluid in the third chambers 624A, 624B is compressed by the compression pistons 608A, 608B. The compressed fluid is expelled from the third chambers 624A, 624B and flows through the respective outlet check valves 628B towards the fluid discharge 604.

[0070] In response to the air piston 612 being positioned to the left (in reference to the arrangement of FIG. 6A), the air piston 612 engages the first switch 629A coupled to the left side of the air cylinder 614. In response to the first switch 629A being engaged, the air control valve 622 stops the flow of compressed air to the second chamber 618 and once again directs the flow of compressed air to enter the first chamber 616. In the illustrated example of FIG. 6A, the air control valve 622 continuously redirects the flow of compressed air between the first chamber 616 and the second chamber 618 to compress fluid entering the third chambers 624A, 624B and the fourth chambers 626A, 626B.

[0071] In the illustrated example of FIG. 6A, the fluid evacuation system 200 includes two compressor units (e.g., the first compressor unit 606A and the second compressor unit 606B). In other examples, to reduce a size of the fluid evacuation system 200, only one of the compressor units (e.g., the first compressor unit 606A or the second compressor unit 606B) is used. In other examples, multiple ones (e.g., three or more) of the compressor units are used. In such examples, the rate of compression and/or the differential pressure of the gas compressed by the fluid evacuation system 200 can be modified by selectively configuring an arrangement of the compressor units (e.g., in a series arrangement and/or in a parallel arrangement).

[0072] FIG. 6B illustrates the compressor units 606A, 606B of FIG. 6A configured for electrical, rather than pneumatic, actuation. In such examples, gas from the fluid intake 602 of FIG. 6A is not compressed using compressed air from the air supply 202, but rather is compressed via an example linear actuator 638. As such, in this example, the fluid evacuation system 200 does not include the air control valve 622, the air supply 620, and/or the air exhaust tubing 634 of FIG. 6A. The linear actuator 638 is coupled to and/or powered by an example battery 640.

[0073] In the illustrated example of FIG. 6B, the linear actuator 638 is operatively coupled to the rod 632 to move the gas piston 608 (e.g., the first gas piston 608A or the second gas piston 608B of FIG. 6A) inside the compression cylinder 610 (e.g., the first compression cylinder 610A or the second compression cylinder 610B of FIG. 6A). In this example, the linear actuator 638 is configured such that the gas piston 608 moves to the left when the linear actuator 638 extends, and the gas piston 608 moves to the right when the linear actuator 638 contracts. Alternatively, in other examples, the linear actuator 638 is configured such that the gas piston 608 moves to the left when the linear actuator 638 contracts, and the gas piston 608 moves to the right when the linear actuator 638 extends.

[0074] In this example, each of the compressor units 606A, 606B includes a single one of the gas pistons 608A, 608B and a corresponding one of the compression cylinders 610A, 610B. In such examples, each of the compressor units 606A, 606B includes corresponding ones of the linear actuator 638. In other examples, the linear actuator 638 can be coupled to both of the compressor units 606A, 606B to operate the compressor units 606A, 606B simultaneously. In other examples, the compressor units 606A, 606B can include both of the gas pistons 608A, 608B operated by the linear actuator 638.

[0075] In the illustrated example of FIG. 6B, in response to the linear actuator 638 moving the gas piston 608 to the right, the gas in the fourth chamber 626 is compressed by the gas piston 608. Compressed gas is expelled from the fourth chamber 626 and flows through the respective outlet check valves 628B towards the fluid discharge 604. Alternatively, in response to the linear actuator 638 moving the gas piston 608 to the left, the gas in the third chamber 624 is compressed by the gas piston 608. Compressed gas is expelled from the fourth chamber 626 and flows through the respective outlet check valves 628B towards the fluid discharge 604. In this example, the linear actuator 638 continuously moves between an extended position and a contracted position to compress gas entering the third chamber 624 and the fourth chamber 626 until the gas is evacuated from the first location (e.g., coupled to the fluid intake 602) and transferred to the second location (e.g., coupled to the fluid discharge 604).

[0076] FIG. 6C illustrates a perspective view of the example linear actuator 638 of FIG. 6B. The example linear actuator 638 includes an example motor 642 coupled to the battery 640 of FIG. 6B, an example gear box 644, an example lead screw 646, an example drill nut 648, an example retract limit switch 650, and an example extend limit switch 652. In the illustrated example of FIG. 6C, rotation of the motor 642 causes corresponding rotation of the lead screw 646 via the gear box 644. The rotation of the lead screw 646 causes linear travel of the drill nut 648 along the lead screw 646 and, as such, causes the linear actuator 638 to extend or retract based on a direction of rotation of the motor 642 and/or the lead screw 646. For example, the linear actuator 638 extends in response to the motor 642 rotating in a first direction, and the linear actuator 638 retracts in response to the motor 642 rotating in a second direction, where the second direction is opposite from the first direction.

[0077] In the illustrated example of FIG. 6C, in response to the linear actuator 638 being fully extended, the drill nut 648 engages the extend limit switch 652. In such examples, the extend limit switch 652 sends a first electrical signal to the motor 642. In some examples, the first electrical signal causes the motor 642 to stop rotating and/or reverse the direction of rotation (e.g., from the first direction to the second direction). Alternatively, in response to the linear actuator 638 being fully retracted, the drill nut 648 engages the retract limit switch 650. In such examples, the retract limit switch 650 sends a second electrical signal to the motor 642. In some examples, where the first electrical signal causes the motor 642 to stop rotating and/or reverse the direction of rotation (e.g., from the second direction to the first direction). As such, repeatedly engaging the retract limit switch 650 and the extend limit switch 652 causes linear reciprocal travel of the linear actuator 638 to compress the gas in the compression cylinder 610 of FIG. 6B.

[0078] FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an example programmable circuitry platform 700 structured to execute and/or instantiate the example machine-readable instructions and/or the example operations of FIG. 5 to implement the control system circuitry 322 of FIG. 3. The programmable circuitry platform 700 can be, for example, a server, a personal computer, a workstation, a self-learning machine (e.g., a neural network), a mobile device (e.g., a cell phone, a smart phone, a tablet such as an iPad), a personal digital assistant (PDA), an Internet appliance, a DVD player, a CD player, a digital video recorder, a Blu-ray player, a gaming console, a personal video recorder, a set top box, a headset (e.g., an augmented reality (AR) headset, a virtual reality (VR) headset, etc.) or other wearable device, or any other type of computing and/or electronic device.

[0079] The programmable circuitry platform 700 of the illustrated example includes programmable circuitry 712. The programmable circuitry 712 of the illustrated example is hardware. For example, the programmable circuitry 712 can be implemented by one or more integrated circuits, logic circuits, FPGAs, microprocessors, CPUs, GPUs, DSPs, and/or microcontrollers from any desired family or manufacturer. The programmable circuitry 712 may be implemented by one or more semiconductor based (e.g., silicon based) devices. In this example, the programmable circuitry 712 implements the example air controller circuitry 324, the example oxidizer controller circuitry 326, and the example meter interface circuitry 328.

[0080] The programmable circuitry 712 of the illustrated example includes a local memory 713 (e.g., a cache, registers, etc.). The programmable circuitry 712 of the illustrated example is in communication with main memory 714, 716, which includes a volatile memory 714 and a non-volatile memory 716, by a bus 718. The volatile memory 714 may be implemented by Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM), Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), RAMBUS Dynamic Random Access Memory (RDRAM), and/or any other type of RAM device. The non-volatile memory 716 may be implemented by flash memory and/or any other desired type of memory device. Access to the main memory 714, 716 of the illustrated example is controlled by a memory controller 717. In some examples, the memory controller 717 may be implemented by one or more integrated circuits, logic circuits, microcontrollers from any desired family or manufacturer, or any other type of circuitry to manage the flow of data going to and from the main memory 714, 716.

[0081] The programmable circuitry platform 700 of the illustrated example also includes interface circuitry 720. The interface circuitry 720 may be implemented by hardware in accordance with any type of interface standard, such as an Ethernet interface, a universal serial bus (USB) interface, a Bluetooth interface, a near field communication (NFC) interface, a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) interface, and/or a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) interface.

[0082] In the illustrated example, one or more input devices 722 are connected to the interface circuitry 720. The input device(s) 722 permit(s) a user (e.g., a human user, a machine user, etc.) to enter data and/or commands into the programmable circuitry 712. The input device(s) 722 can be implemented by, for example, an audio sensor, a microphone, a camera (still or video), a keyboard, a button, a mouse, a touchscreen, a trackpad, a trackball, an isopoint device, and/or a voice recognition system.

[0083] One or more output devices 724 are also connected to the interface circuitry 720 of the illustrated example. The output device(s) 724 can be implemented, for example, by display devices (e.g., a light emitting diode (LED), an organic light emitting diode (OLED), a liquid crystal display (LCD), a cathode ray tube (CRT) display, an in-place switching (IPS) display, a touchscreen, etc.), a tactile output device, a printer, and/or speaker. The interface circuitry 720 of the illustrated example, thus, typically includes a graphics driver card, a graphics driver chip, and/or graphics processor circuitry such as a GPU.

[0084] The interface circuitry 720 of the illustrated example also includes a communication device such as a transmitter, a receiver, a transceiver, a modem, a residential gateway, a wireless access point, and/or a network interface to facilitate exchange of data with external machines (e.g., computing devices of any kind) by a network 726. The communication can be by, for example, an Ethernet connection, a digital subscriber line (DSL) connection, a telephone line connection, a coaxial cable system, a satellite system, a beyond-line-of-sight wireless system, a line-of-sight wireless system, a cellular telephone system, an optical connection, etc.

[0085] The programmable circuitry platform 700 of the illustrated example also includes one or more mass storage discs or devices 728 to store firmware, software, and/or data. Examples of such mass storage discs or devices 728 include magnetic storage devices (e.g., floppy disk, drives, HDDs, etc.), optical storage devices (e.g., Blu-ray disks, CDs, DVDs, etc.), RAID systems, and/or solid-state storage discs or devices such as flash memory devices and/or SSDs.

[0086] The machine readable instructions 732, which may be implemented by the machine readable instructions of FIG. 5, may be stored in the mass storage device 728, in the volatile memory 714, in the non-volatile memory 716, and/or on at least one non-transitory computer readable storage medium such as a CD or DVD which may be removable.

[0087] FIG. 8 is a block diagram of an example implementation of the programmable circuitry 712 of FIG. 7. In this example, the programmable circuitry 712 of FIG. 7 is implemented by a microprocessor 800. For example, the microprocessor 800 may be a general-purpose microprocessor (e.g., general-purpose microprocessor circuitry). The microprocessor 800 executes some or all of the machine-readable instructions of the flowchart of FIG. 5 to effectively instantiate the circuitry of FIG. 2 as logic circuits to perform operations corresponding to those machine readable instructions. In some such examples, the circuitry of FIG. 3 is instantiated by the hardware circuits of the microprocessor 800 in combination with the machine-readable instructions. For example, the microprocessor 800 may be implemented by multi-core hardware circuitry such as a CPU, a DSP, a GPU, an XPU, etc. Although it may include any number of example cores 802 (e.g., 1 core), the microprocessor 800 of this example is a multi-core semiconductor device including N cores. The cores 802 of the microprocessor 800 may operate independently or may cooperate to execute machine readable instructions. For example, machine code corresponding to a firmware program, an embedded software program, or a software program may be executed by one of the cores 802 or may be executed by multiple ones of the cores 802 at the same or different times. In some examples, the machine code corresponding to the firmware program, the embedded software program, or the software program is split into threads and executed in parallel by two or more of the cores 802.

[0088] The software program may correspond to a portion or all of the machine readable instructions and/or operations represented by the flowchart of FIG. 5.

[0089] The cores 802 may communicate by a first example bus 804. In some examples, the first bus 804 may be implemented by a communication bus to effectuate communication associated with one(s) of the cores 802. For example, the first bus 804 may be implemented by at least one of an Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C) bus, a Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) bus, a PCI bus, or a PCIe bus. Additionally or alternatively, the first bus 804 may be implemented by any other type of computing or electrical bus. The cores 802 may obtain data, instructions, and/or signals from one or more external devices by example interface circuitry 806. The cores 802 may output data, instructions, and/or signals to the one or more external devices by the interface circuitry 806. Although the cores 802 of this example include example local memory 820 (e.g., Level 1 (L1) cache that may be split into an L1 data cache and an L1 instruction cache), the microprocessor 800 also includes example shared memory 810 that may be shared by the cores (e.g., Level 2 (L2 cache)) for high-speed access to data and/or instructions. Data and/or instructions may be transferred (e.g., shared) by writing to and/or reading from the shared memory 810. The local memory 820 of each of the cores 802 and the shared memory 810 may be part of a hierarchy of storage devices including multiple levels of cache memory and the main memory (e.g., the main memory 714, 716 of FIG. 7). Typically, higher levels of memory in the hierarchy exhibit lower access time and have smaller storage capacity than lower levels of memory. Changes in the various levels of the cache hierarchy are managed (e.g., coordinated) by a cache coherency policy.

[0090] Each core 802 may be referred to as a CPU, DSP, GPU, etc., or any other type of hardware circuitry. Each core 802 includes control unit circuitry 814, arithmetic and logic (AL) circuitry (sometimes referred to as an ALU) 816, a plurality of registers 818, the local memory 820, and a second example bus 822. Other structures may be present. For example, each core 802 may include vector unit circuitry, single instruction multiple data (SIMD) unit circuitry, load/store unit (LSU) circuitry, branch/jump unit circuitry, floating-point unit (FPU) circuitry, etc. The control unit circuitry 814 includes semiconductor-based circuits structured to control (e.g., coordinate) data movement within the corresponding core 802. The AL circuitry 816 includes semiconductor-based circuits structured to perform one or more mathematic and/or logic operations on the data within the corresponding core 802. The AL circuitry 816 of some examples performs integer based operations. In other examples, the AL circuitry 816 also performs floating-point operations. In yet other examples, the AL circuitry 816 may include first AL circuitry that performs integer-based operations and second AL circuitry that performs floating-point operations. In some examples, the AL circuitry 816 may be referred to as an Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU).

[0091] The registers 818 are semiconductor-based structures to store data and/or instructions such as results of one or more of the operations performed by the AL circuitry 816 of the corresponding core 802. For example, the registers 818 may include vector register(s), SIMD register(s), general-purpose register(s), flag register(s), segment register(s), machine-specific register(s), instruction pointer register(s), control register(s), debug register(s), memory management register(s), machine check register(s), etc. The registers 818 may be arranged in a bank as shown in FIG. 8. Alternatively, the registers 818 may be organized in any other arrangement, format, or structure, such as by being distributed throughout the core 802 to shorten access time. The second bus 822 may be implemented by at least one of an I2C bus, a SPI bus, a PCI bus, or a PCIe bus.

[0092] Each core 802 and/or, more generally, the microprocessor 800 may include additional and/or alternate structures to those shown and described above. For example, one or more clock circuits, one or more power supplies, one or more power gates, one or more cache home agents (CHAs), one or more converged/common mesh stops (CMSs), one or more shifters (e.g., barrel shifter(s)) and/or other circuitry may be present. The microprocessor 800 is a semiconductor device fabricated to include many transistors interconnected to implement the structures described above in one or more integrated circuits (ICs) contained in one or more packages.

[0093] The microprocessor 800 may include and/or cooperate with one or more accelerators (e.g., acceleration circuitry, hardware accelerators, etc.). In some examples, accelerators are implemented by logic circuitry to perform certain tasks more quickly and/or efficiently than can be done by a general-purpose processor. Examples of accelerators include ASICs and FPGAs such as those discussed herein. A GPU, DSP and/or other programmable device can also be an accelerator. Accelerators may be on-board the microprocessor 800, in the same chip package as the microprocessor 800 and/or in one or more separate packages from the microprocessor 800.

[0094] FIG. 9 is a block diagram of another example implementation of the programmable circuitry 712 of FIG. 7. In this example, the programmable circuitry 712 is implemented by FPGA circuitry 900. For example, the FPGA circuitry 900 may be implemented by an FPGA. The FPGA circuitry 900 can be used, for example, to perform operations that could otherwise be performed by the example microprocessor 800 of FIG. 8 executing corresponding machine readable instructions. However, once configured, the FPGA circuitry 900 instantiates the operations and/or functions corresponding to the machine readable instructions in hardware and, thus, can often execute the operations/functions faster than they could be performed by a general-purpose microprocessor executing the corresponding software.

[0095] More specifically, in contrast to the microprocessor 800 of FIG. 8 described above (which is a general purpose device that may be programmed to execute some or all of the machine readable instructions represented by the flowchart(s) of FIG. 5 but whose interconnections and logic circuitry are fixed once fabricated), the FPGA circuitry 900 of the example of FIG. 9 includes interconnections and logic circuitry that may be configured, structured, programmed, and/or interconnected in different ways after fabrication to instantiate, for example, some or all of the operations/functions corresponding to the machine readable instructions represented by the flowchart of FIG. 5. In particular, the FPGA circuitry 900 may be thought of as an array of logic gates, interconnections, and switches. The switches can be programmed to change how the logic gates are interconnected by the interconnections, effectively forming one or more dedicated logic circuits (unless and until the FPGA circuitry 900 is reprogrammed). The configured logic circuits enable the logic gates to cooperate in different ways to perform different operations on data received by input circuitry. Those operations may correspond to some or all of the instructions (e.g., the software and/or firmware) represented by the flowchart of FIG. 5. As such, the FPGA circuitry 900 may be configured and/or structured to effectively instantiate some or all of the operations/functions corresponding to the machine readable instructions of the flowchart of FIG. 5 as dedicated logic circuits to perform the operations/functions corresponding to those software instructions in a dedicated manner analogous to an ASIC. Therefore, the FPGA circuitry 900 may perform the operations/functions corresponding to the some or all of the machine readable instructions of FIG. 5 faster than the general-purpose microprocessor can execute the same.

[0096] In the example of FIG. 9, the FPGA circuitry 900 is configured and/or structured in response to being programmed (and/or reprogrammed one or more times) based on a binary file. In some examples, the binary file may be compiled and/or generated based on instructions in a hardware description language (HDL) such as Lucid, Very High Speed Integrated Circuits (VHSIC) Hardware Description Language (VHDL), or Verilog. For example, a user (e.g., a human user, a machine user, etc.) may write code or a program corresponding to one or more operations/functions in an HDL; the code/program may be translated into a low-level language as needed; and the code/program (e.g., the code/program in the low-level language) may be converted (e.g., by a compiler, a software application, etc.) into the binary file. In some examples, the FPGA circuitry 900 of FIG. 9 may access and/or load the binary file to cause the FPGA circuitry 900 of FIG. 9 to be configured and/or structured to perform the one or more operations/functions. For example, the binary file may be implemented by a bit stream (e.g., one or more computer-readable bits, one or more machine-readable bits, etc.), data (e.g., computer-readable data, machine-readable data, etc.), and/or machine-readable instructions accessible to the FPGA circuitry 900 of FIG. 9 to cause configuration and/or structuring of the FPGA circuitry 900 of FIG. 9, or portion(s) thereof.

[0097] In some examples, the binary file is compiled, generated, transformed, and/or otherwise output from a uniform software platform utilized to program FPGAs. For example, the uniform software platform may translate first instructions (e.g., code or a program) that correspond to one or more operations/functions in a high-level language (e.g., C, C++, Python, etc.) into second instructions that correspond to the one or more operations/functions in an HDL. In some such examples, the binary file is compiled, generated, and/or otherwise output from the uniform software platform based on the second instructions. In some examples, the FPGA circuitry 900 of FIG. 9 may access and/or load the binary file to cause the FPGA circuitry 900 of FIG. 9 to be configured and/or structured to perform the one or more operations/functions. For example, the binary file may be implemented by a bit stream (e.g., one or more computer-readable bits, one or more machine-readable bits, etc.), data (e.g., computer-readable data, machine-readable data, etc.), and/or machine-readable instructions accessible to the FPGA circuitry 900 of FIG. 9 to cause configuration and/or structuring of the FPGA circuitry 900 of FIG. 9, or portion(s) thereof.

[0098] The FPGA circuitry 900 of FIG. 9, includes example input/output (I/O) circuitry 902 to obtain and/or output data to/from example configuration circuitry 904 and/or external hardware 906. For example, the configuration circuitry 904 may be implemented by interface circuitry that may obtain a binary file, which may be implemented by a bit stream, data, and/or machine-readable instructions, to configure the FPGA circuitry 900, or portion(s) thereof. In some such examples, the configuration circuitry 904 may obtain the binary file from a user, a machine (e.g., hardware circuitry (e.g., programmable or dedicated circuitry) that may implement an Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) model to generate the binary file), etc., and/or any combination(s) thereof). In some examples, the external hardware 906 may be implemented by external hardware circuitry. For example, the external hardware 906 may be implemented by the microprocessor 800 of FIG. 8.

[0099] The FPGA circuitry 900 also includes an array of example logic gate circuitry 908, a plurality of example configurable interconnections 910, and example storage circuitry 912. The logic gate circuitry 908 and the configurable interconnections 910 are configurable to instantiate one or more operations/functions that may correspond to at least some of the machine readable instructions of FIG. 5 and/or other desired operations. The logic gate circuitry 908 shown in FIG. 9 is fabricated in blocks or groups. Each block includes semiconductor-based electrical structures that may be configured into logic circuits. In some examples, the electrical structures include logic gates (e.g., And gates, Or gates, Nor gates, etc.) that provide basic building blocks for logic circuits. Electrically controllable switches (e.g., transistors) are present within each of the logic gate circuitry 908 to enable configuration of the electrical structures and/or the logic gates to form circuits to perform desired operations/functions. The logic gate circuitry 908 may include other electrical structures such as look-up tables (LUTs), registers (e.g., flip-flops or latches), multiplexers, etc.

[0100] The configurable interconnections 910 of the illustrated example are conductive pathways, traces, vias, or the like that may include electrically controllable switches (e.g., transistors) whose state can be changed by programming (e.g., using an HDL instruction language) to activate or deactivate one or more connections between one or more of the logic gate circuitry 908 to program desired logic circuits.

[0101] The storage circuitry 912 of the illustrated example is structured to store result(s) of the one or more of the operations performed by corresponding logic gates. The storage circuitry 912 may be implemented by registers or the like. In the illustrated example, the storage circuitry 912 is distributed amongst the logic gate circuitry 908 to facilitate access and increase execution speed.

[0102] The example FPGA circuitry 900 of FIG. 9 also includes example dedicated operations circuitry 914. In this example, the dedicated operations circuitry 914 includes special purpose circuitry 916 that may be invoked to implement commonly used functions to avoid the need to program those functions in the field. Examples of such special purpose circuitry 916 include memory (e.g., DRAM) controller circuitry, PCIe controller circuitry, clock circuitry, transceiver circuitry, memory, and multiplier-accumulator circuitry. Other types of special purpose circuitry may be present. In some examples, the FPGA circuitry 900 may also include example general purpose programmable circuitry 918 such as an example CPU 920 and/or an example DSP 922. Other general purpose programmable circuitry 918 may additionally or alternatively be present such as a GPU, an XPU, etc., that can be programmed to perform other operations.

[0103] Although FIGS. 8 and 9 illustrate two example implementations of the programmable circuitry 712 of FIG. 7, many other approaches are contemplated. For example, FPGA circuitry may include an on-board CPU, such as one or more of the example CPU 920 of FIG. 8. Therefore, the programmable circuitry 712 of FIG. 7 may additionally be implemented by combining at least the example microprocessor 800 of FIG. 8 and the example FPGA circuitry 900 of FIG. 9. In some such hybrid examples, one or more cores 802 of FIG. 8 may execute a first portion of the machine readable instructions represented by the flowchart of FIG. 5 to perform first operation(s)/function(s), the FPGA circuitry 900 of FIG. 9 may be configured and/or structured to perform second operation(s)/function(s) corresponding to a second portion of the machine readable instructions represented by the flowchart of FIG. 5, and/or an ASIC may be configured and/or structured to perform third operation(s)/function(s) corresponding to a third portion of the machine readable instructions represented by the flowchart of FIG. 5.

[0104] It should be understood that some or all of the circuitry of FIG. 3 may, thus, be instantiated at the same or different times. For example, same and/or different portion(s) of the microprocessor 800 of FIG. 8 may be programmed to execute portion(s) of machine-readable instructions at the same and/or different times. In some examples, same and/or different portion(s) of the FPGA circuitry 900 of FIG. 9 may be configured and/or structured to perform operations/functions corresponding to portion(s) of machine-readable instructions at the same and/or different times.

[0105] In some examples, some or all of the circuitry of FIG. 3 may be instantiated, for example, in one or more threads executing concurrently and/or in series. For example, the microprocessor 800 of FIG. 8 may execute machine readable instructions in one or more threads executing concurrently and/or in series. In some examples, the FPGA circuitry 900 of FIG. 9 may be configured and/or structured to carry out operations/functions concurrently and/or in series. Moreover, in some examples, some or all of the circuitry of FIG. 3 may be implemented within one or more virtual machines and/or containers executing on the microprocessor 800 of FIG. 8.

[0106] In some examples, the programmable circuitry 712 of FIG. 7 may be in one or more packages. For example, the microprocessor 800 of FIG. 8 and/or the FPGA circuitry 900 of FIG. 9 may be in one or more packages. In some examples, an XPU may be implemented by the programmable circuitry 712 of FIG. 7, which may be in one or more packages. For example, the XPU may include a CPU (e.g., the microprocessor 800 of FIG. 8, the CPU 920 of FIG. 9, etc.) in one package, a DSP (e.g., the DSP 922 of FIG. 9) in another package, a GPU in yet another package, and an FPGA (e.g., the FPGA circuitry 900 of FIG. 9) in still yet another package.

[0107] From the foregoing, it will be appreciated that example systems, methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture have been disclosed that enable reduction of methane emissions when evacuating natural gas from a pipe. The disclosed systems, methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture implement a thermal oxidizer in a pump (e.g., a Venturi pump) that uses flow of air to cause suction of gas from the pipe. The gas mixes with air in the pump and flows through the thermal oxidizer, where the gas-air mixture chemically reacts with ceramic material of the thermal oxidizer to convert methane into carbon dioxide and water. As such, the disclosed systems, methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture reduce emission of methane into the atmosphere, thus reducing environmental harm and/or risk of accidental combustion during evacuation of the pipe.

[0108] Example thermal oxidation apparatus, control, and associated methods are disclosed herein. Further examples and combinations thereof include the following:

[0109] Example 1 includes an apparatus comprising a pump fluidly couplable to a pipe, the pump including a nozzle at a first end of the pump, a second end of the pump open to atmosphere, an air compressor fluidly coupled to the nozzle, and a thermal oxidizer disposed in the pump between the first end and the second end, the air compressor to provide air to the nozzle to cause suction of gas from the pipe, the thermal oxidizer to convert methane in the gas to carbon dioxide and water vapor to be vented from the second end of the pump.

[0110] Example 2 includes the apparatus of example 1, further including an elbow fluidly couplable between the pump and the pipe.

[0111] Example 3 includes the apparatus of example 1, wherein the thermal oxidizer includes ceramic material disposed in the pump.

[0112] Example 4 includes the apparatus of example 3, wherein the thermal oxidizer includes conductive coils, electrical current to pass through the conductive coils to heat the ceramic material to a threshold temperature.

[0113] Example 5 includes the apparatus of example 1, wherein the nozzle includes a tapered portion, a diameter of the nozzle decreasing along the tapered portion toward the second end of the pump.

[0114] Example 6 includes the apparatus of example 1, further including a meter operatively couplable to the pipe, the meter to measure at least one of a pressure or a concentration of the gas in the pipe, the thermal oxidizer and the air compressor to operate based on the measured at least one of the pressure or the concentration.

[0115] Example 7 includes the apparatus of example 1, further including a fluid evacuation system operatively couplable to the pipe, the fluid evacuation system to evacuate an amount of the gas from the pipe prior to operation of the thermal oxidizer and the air compressor.

[0116] Example 8 includes a system comprising meter interface circuitry to determine, based on data from a meter operatively couplable to a pipe, a parameter of gas in the pipe, air controller circuitry to cause an air compressor to provide air to a nozzle, the nozzle at a first end of a pump fluidly couplable to the pipe, a second end of the pump open to atmosphere, the air to cause suction of the gas from the pipe, and oxidizer controller circuitry to cause operation of a thermal oxidizer disposed in the pump between the first and second ends, the thermal oxidizer to convert methane in the gas to carbon dioxide and water vapor to be vented from the second end of the pump.

[0117] Example 9 includes the system of example 8, wherein the parameter of the gas includes at least one of a pressure of the gas or a concentration of the gas in the pipe.

[0118] Example 10 includes the system of example 8, wherein the air controller circuitry is to cause the air compressor to provide the air in response to the meter interface circuitry determining that the parameter of the gas does not satisfy a threshold.

[0119] Example 11 includes the system of example 10, wherein the air controller circuitry is to shut off the air compressor in response to the meter interface circuitry determining that the parameter of the gas satisfies the threshold.

[0120] Example 12 includes the system of example 8, wherein the oxidizer controller circuitry is to cause operation of the thermal oxidizer by causing an electrical current to pass through coils of the thermal oxidizer, the coils to heat ceramic material of the thermal oxidizer.

[0121] Example 13 includes the system of example 12, wherein the air controller circuitry is to cause the air compressor to provide the air in response to the oxidizer controller circuitry determining that a temperature of the ceramic material satisfies a threshold temperature.

[0122] Example 14 includes the system of example 8, wherein the air controller circuitry is to cause the air compressor to provide the air in response to a fluid evacuation system evacuating an amount of the gas from the pipe.

[0123] Example 15 includes a method comprising determining, based on data from a meter operatively couplable to a pipe, a parameter of gas in the pipe, causing an air compressor to provide air to a nozzle, the nozzle at a first end of a pump fluidly couplable to the pipe, a second end of the pump open to atmosphere, the air to cause suction of the gas from the pipe, and causing operation of a thermal oxidizer disposed in the pump between the first and second ends, the thermal oxidizer to convert methane in the gas to carbon dioxide and water vapor to be vented from the second end of the pump.

[0124] Example 16 includes the method of example 15, wherein the parameter of the gas includes at least one of a pressure of the gas or a concentration of the gas in the pipe.

[0125] Example 17 includes the method of example 15, further including causing the air compressor to provide the air in response to determining that the parameter of the gas does not satisfy a threshold.

[0126] Example 18 includes the method of example 17, further including shutting off the air compressor in response to determining that the parameter of the gas satisfies the threshold.

[0127] Example 19 includes the method of example 15, further including causing operation of the thermal oxidizer by causing an electrical current to pass through coils of the thermal oxidizer, the coils to heat ceramic material of the thermal oxidizer.

[0128] Example 20 includes the method of example 19, further including causing the air compressor to provide the air in response to determining that a temperature of the ceramic material satisfies a threshold temperature.

[0129] Example 21 includes a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed, cause programmable circuitry to at least determine, based on data from a meter operatively couplable to a pipe, a parameter of gas in the pipe, cause an air compressor to provide air to a nozzle, the nozzle at a first end of a pump fluidly couplable to the pipe, a second end of the pump open to atmosphere, the air to cause suction of the gas from the pipe, and cause operation of a thermal oxidizer disposed in the pump between the first and second ends, the thermal oxidizer to convert methane in the gas to carbon dioxide and water vapor to be vented from the second end of the pump.

[0130] Example 22 includes the non-transitory computer readable medium of example 21, wherein the parameter of the gas includes at least one of a pressure of the gas or a concentration of the gas in the pipe.

[0131] Example 23 includes the non-transitory computer readable medium of example 21, wherein the instructions, when executed, cause the programmable circuitry to cause the air compressor to provide the air in response to determining that the parameter of the gas does not satisfy a threshold.

[0132] Example 24 includes the non-transitory computer readable medium of example 23, wherein the instructions, when executed, cause the programmable circuitry to shut off the air compressor in response to determining that the parameter of the gas satisfies the threshold.

[0133] Example 25 includes the non-transitory computer readable medium of example 21, wherein the instructions, when executed, cause the programmable circuitry to cause operation of the thermal oxidizer by causing an electrical current to pass through coils of the thermal oxidizer, the coils to heat ceramic material of the thermal oxidizer.

[0134] Example 26 includes the non-transitory computer readable medium of example 25, wherein the instructions, when executed, cause the programmable circuitry to cause the air compressor to provide the air in response to determining that a temperature of the ceramic material satisfies a threshold temperature.

[0135] Example 27 includes the non-transitory computer readable medium of example 21, wherein the instructions, when executed, cause the programmable circuitry to cause the air compressor to provide the air in response to a fluid evacuation system evacuating an amount of the gas from the pipe.

[0136] Example 28 includes an apparatus comprising memory, instructions, and programmable circuitry to execute the instructions to at least determine, based on data from a meter operatively couplable to a pipe, a parameter of gas in the pipe, cause an air compressor to provide air to a nozzle, the nozzle at a first end of a pump fluidly couplable to the pipe, a second end of the pump open to atmosphere, the air to cause suction of the gas from the pipe, and cause operation of a thermal oxidizer disposed in the pump between the first and second ends, the thermal oxidizer to convert methane in the gas to carbon dioxide and water vapor to be vented from the second end of the pump.

[0137] Example 29 includes the apparatus of example 28, wherein the parameter of the gas includes at least one of a pressure of the gas or a concentration of the gas in the pipe.

[0138] Example 30 includes the apparatus of example 28, wherein the programmable circuitry is to cause the air compressor to provide the air in response to determining that the parameter of the gas does not satisfy a threshold.

[0139] Example 31 includes the apparatus of example 30, wherein the programmable circuitry is to shut off the air compressor in response to determining that the parameter of the gas satisfies the threshold.

[0140] Example 32 includes the apparatus of example 28, wherein the programmable circuitry is to cause operation of the thermal oxidizer by causing an electrical current to pass through coils of the thermal oxidizer, the coils to heat ceramic material of the thermal oxidizer.

[0141] Example 33 includes the apparatus of example 32, wherein the programmable circuitry is to cause the air compressor to provide the air in response to determining that a temperature of the ceramic material satisfies a threshold temperature.

[0142] Example 34 includes the apparatus of example 28, wherein the programmable circuitry is to cause the air compressor to provide the air in response to a fluid evacuation system evacuating an amount of the gas from the pipe.

[0143] Although certain example systems, methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture have been disclosed herein, the scope of coverage of this patent is not limited thereto. On the contrary, this patent covers all systems, methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture fairly falling within the scope of the claims of this patent.

[0144] The following claims are hereby incorporated into this Detailed Description by this reference, with each claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment of the present disclosure.