Temporary replacement of stationary vapor recovery units (VRU): avoiding downtimes with mobile vapor combustion
Reliable emission treatment is essential for environmental protection, compliance with legal regulations and workplace safety. Stationary systems for emission reduction, such as vapor recovery units, are an important component of many production and storage facilities. VRUs remove volatile organic compounds (VOC) and hazardous air pollutants (HAP) from the exhaust gases that are being created. But what happens if a VRU breaks down or needs maintenance?
Immediate help for VRU downtimes
If a vapor recovery unit fails – for example due to a malfunction or necessary maintenance –, this can have a significant impact on operational processes. As environmentally harmful and unhealthy gases and vapors can escape uncontrolled without a functioning emissions treatment system, operations in plants without suitable emissions control must be stopped. Complete plant shutdowns are of course a serious blow and lead to high unplanned costs.
Mobile and flexible combustion units are a solution for VRU downtimes. As a system for the treatment and reduction of emissions, mobile combustion units are ideal for the temporary replacement of shut-down vapor recovery units. Fast deployment times and flexible commissioning ensure that emissions treatment continues seamlessly and that operations are not interrupted.
Efficient emission reduction without production downtime
Our mobile vapor combustion units are specially designed to treat industrial emissions and degrade gases, gas mixtures and vapors with an efficiency of over 99.99%. They enable the safe combustion of VOC and HAP emissions so that pollutant limits are adhered to and environmental regulations are met.
A key advantage of VRU replacement with mobile combustion units is that they can be flexibly used and adapted to the conditions on-site. Whether short-term maintenance or long-term repair of a VRU – the use of mobile vapor combustion units guarantees continuous emission control. With the different combustion capacities of our combustion units – 3, 4, 5, 10 and 20 MW –, the systems are flexibly suitable for both short- and long-term replacement deployments.
Advantages of VRU replacement with mobile vapor combustion units at a glance:
- Fast availability: The systems are ready for use within a short time.
- Flexibility: Mobile vapor combustion units can be customized to various industry-specific and individual requirements.
- Compliance: All rules and regulations, such as the pollutant limit values according to TA-Luft, are adhered to when reducing emissions.
- Avoiding production downtimes: Plant downtimes can be avoided through the temporary use of mobile vapor combustion units for replacement deployments.
- Implementation: Our operators take over the operation of the systems that can be integrated into existing processes with little or no effort and with little or no restrictions.
Successful applications: VRU replacement in action
Among the more than 3,000 successful applications of our technologies are, of course, numerous replacements of vapor recovery units. For example, we recently carried out VRU backups at tank farms in Germany and the Netherlands. Our vapor combustion units were also used after VRU downtimes in the Ports of Antwerp, Rotterdam and Amsterdam to treat the emissions produced during loading and unloading processes. We also recently replaced the stationary vapor recovery unit in a truck loading facility in the Netherlands with a mobile combustion chamber so that loading processes could continue without restrictions.
We were honored with the TotalEnergies Safety Award 2023 in the Safest Contractor Tank Farm category for two replacements during the downtime of the stationary VRUs. The vapor recovery units at two of the customer’s tank terminals had to be taken out of operation for repairs. During the VRU downtimes, our mobile combustion chambers took over their tasks for emission treatment and burned the resulting vapors and gases in an environmentally-friendly and efficient manner. Therefore, the tank farms could continue to operate safely and without restrictions, even without the VRU, without any safety risks or environmental damage. As no processes had to be interrupted during the failure of the VRUs, there was no shortage of petrol in the affected regions.
Operational reliability despite VRU downtime
A downtime of a vapour recovery unit does not necessarily have to lead to a production stop and plant downtime. With the mobile vapor combustion units from ETS Degassing, a reliable solution is available to temporarily take over emission treatment and thus ensure operational continuity. Industrial companies benefit not only from a high degree of flexibility, but also from the certainty that environmental standards and legal requirements are met at all times.
Learn more about our mobile vapor combustion units and further technologies.