Sustainable turnaround management in industrial
plants: efficient degassing and emission reduction
Turnarounds, plant shutdowns and revisions are among the most complex tasks in the operation of industrial plants. They serve to maintain, repair and modernize plants, processes and components and must be planned and carried out under high time pressure. An important part of this is degassing: residues of gases, gas mixtures and vapors can still be found in many plant components such as tanks or vacuum trucks. Before cleaning and maintenance works can begin, these VOC and HAP emissions must be safely removed to ensure a sustainable turnaround without any risks to the environment or health. With our mobile vapor combustion units, we can flexibly support turnarounds and shutdowns in refineries and other industrial plants such as tank farms and chemical plants.
Why are degassing and emission reduction essential for turnarounds?
After processes have been shut down, industrial components such as tanks, pipelines, columns, heat exchangers, vacuum trucks or decanters still contain gaseous residues. These can be highly flammable, toxic and hazardous to the environment, employees and local residents. It is therefore essential to degas the components in a controlled manner during turnarounds and revisions in order to completely remove gas residues.
Efficient and TA-Luft-compliant degassing for turnarounds
Mobile vapor combustion units from ETS Degassing enable the low-emission and almost complete combustion of gaseous residues – environmentally-friendly, with an efficiency of over 99.99 % and without an open flame. They are suitable for the degassing of all substances in explosion groups IIA, IIB and IIC, fulfil the highest safety requirements and ensure conformity with the pollutant limit values in accordance with TA-Luft.
Due to their high flexibility, our mobile vapor combustion chambers are particularly suitable for applications during turnarounds and shutdowns. The combustion units can be easily transported directly to the plant site as a trailer or container and can be put into operation after a short set-up time. Degassing and the treatment of harmful emissions can then start immediately. In addition to their flexibility, the mobile systems are of course also a cost-effective solution for degassing as part of turnarounds compared to stationary systems. The combustion units can also be used to replace stationary systems such as vapor recovery units (VRU) during a downtime.
Our portfolio of mobile vapor combustion units includes systems with different combustion capacities that are suitable for various applications. Thanks to their flexibility, several combustion units can also be combined with each other to achieve a higher combustion capacity. From use on individual tanks and other components to large-scale degassing of entire plant sections, all scenarios can be carried out. Our systems can also be deployed for several months for turnarounds. The mobile combustion chambers are supplemented by additional equipment such as mobile nitrogen vaporizers for inerting, ATEX Zone 0 blowers or a remote-controlled robot for tank cleaning from a safe distance.
Degassing for turnarounds
With over 3,000 successfully completed applications, we have extensive experience in degassing and emission reduction. Of course, our technologies have also been used in a number of turnarounds, plant shutdowns and revisions.
Turnarounds in refineries
As part of one of the largest deployments in our company’s history, we supported a turnaround at a refinery in Germany. During the turnaround, which lasted several months, our team completely degassed several columns, heat exchangers and liquid tanks. Three mobile combustion units with a total combustion capacity of 25 MW were used – two units with 10 MW each and one 5 MW unit. We also laid a total of around 1.9 kilometers of piping. Our units were stationed at the refinery for two and a half months.
In another turnaround at a refinery, we provided support by deploying two mobile vapor combustion units with a combined combustion capacity totaling 15 MW. We also provided additional material such as 740 meters of mobile piping, flame arresters and valves. As part of the turnaround, we degassed storage tanks, production tanks, extraction vehicles, distillation columns, heat exchangers and waste water tanks, among other components.
Turnaround in petrochemical industry
We provided a mobile vapor combustion unit as well as piping, valves, flame arresters and other equipment for the turnaround of a plant in the petrochemical industry. In this application, our team degassed storage tanks with n-hexane, mobile liquid tanks and suction trucks and took over the breathing of four other storage tanks.
Turnaround in chemical plant
We also supported the smooth turnaround at a chemical plant in Finland. As part of our application, we used a mobile vapor combustion chamber to degas several tanks during the turnaround. These included containers filled with benzene. For this purpose, we transported one of our mobile combustion units as a trailer with a capacity of 5 MW to Scandinavia and made it available for the turnaround.
Revision of tank terminal
We carried out the degassing of crude oil tanks for the revision in a tank farm in Germany. For this application, we provided two mobile vapor combustion units with a total combustion capacity of 10 MW. Our mobile nitrogen vaporizer was also used to support the degassing process by purging the tank. This enabled us to protect employees, local residents and the environment from hazardous gases produced during maintenance work at the plant.
Conclusion
Degassing and emission reduction during turnarounds, shutdowns and revisions are a key element of safety, environmental protection and compliance. It is therefore important to take this into account at the planning stage. Mobile technologies for degassing and emission reduction can be used flexibly during turnarounds in industrial plants and can destroy gases, gas mixtures and vapors almost completely and sustainably. Degassing during turnarounds makes an important contribution to process safety, reduces industrial emissions and contributes to compliance with legal regulations.
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