This week's Chemical E-Book topic highlight is: oxidizer protection.
Measuring flammability at the inlet of the oxidizer will prevent fires, explosions, or catalyst destruction by monitoring the flammability of the incoming VOC stream.
- These streams are of varying energy content that can change rapidly in a matter of minutes. Danger is present when the inlet stream suddenly gets rich enough to ignite or explode.
For a more detailed look at this application, check out these case histories:
A company who uses acrylate, styrene and vinyl acetate monomers to produce their products, collects the off-gas from the polymerization process in a vent line and sends it to an RTO for oxidation. They must continuously check the %LFL of the mix of monomer vapors in the vent line. They were using a catalytic sensor to monitor to do so, however they were not happy with the 25 second response time. It took too long to prevent a high LFL stream from going into the RTO. They needed an analyzer with a quicker response time, preferably less than 5 seconds.
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So they chose to install a PrevEx Flammability Analyzer on their off-gas vent stream. The analyzer has a very fast response time, less than 3 seconds (including sample transport time), and can react quickly to divert a high LFL stream from going to the RTO.
SPECIALTY CHEMICAL CASE HISTORY
Off-gas (methyl methacrylate) from the manufacturing process of a specialty chemical company is collected in a process vent header that feeds a scrubber. The scrubber ultimately cleans the sample more, so it can go to the Vapor Recovery Unit.
To save money on their steam cycle, this company decided to continuously monitor their process and add water as needed instead of having a constant water flow.To do this, they used two infrared analyzers to monitor the %LFL, if the reading went above 60, they would add more water/steam to the scrubber to scrub the sample. However, the Customer lost confidence in the infrared analyzers due to inconsistent and unreliable readings.
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So they went to their sister plant that was performing a similar operation and asked for an analyzer recommendation. They recommended the PrevEx Flammability Analyzer because it is a rugged, industrial design that can handle the tough environment.
During the manufacture of silicone, quartz and ceramic products different solvents are used. The solvents are evaporated off in a heating process, collected and then directed to an incinerator for destruction.
The company needed to monitor the flammability of the process exhaust stream going into its incinerator. The stream is of varying energy content and has solvent loads that can change rapidly in a matter of minutes.
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They needed an analyzer that could measure this wide range of chemicals, as well as highly corrosive compounds like methyl chloride. They chose the PrevEx Model SNR674 analyzers after a three year investigation of all the technologies available.
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