(55az) Fingerprinting Hazardous Gas Leaks – Remote Sensing for Emissions

Until now, accidental ammonia releases, especially if not instantly detected, pose a threat that is nearly uncontrollable and extremely difficult to manage. Legacy sensing as well as distribution simulation technologies are inapt to model a fast-developing hazard situation accurately in the unfolding of events.
This presentation shows in detail the successful implementation of a novel ammonia warning and mapping system that detects ammonia emissions in real-time throughout the entire Chemelot industrial park, Geleen, NL. Rapid identification and pinpointing of the source as well as real-time mapping of the distribution of the gas cloud provide warning at the earliest possible stage of an accidental release. The robust detection system that is insensitive to fog or dust works fully automated 24/7.

Even though ammonia is one of the best-known chemicals regarding safety measures for handling and storage in order to prevent hazardous releases no reliable measures have been developed for early warning and situation assessment in case of such incidents. The inherent risk was commonly accepted as unavoidable. But growing productivity-demands clash with ever-growing neighboring cities resulting in constantly increasing risk. Considering increasing worldwide demands for ammonia, reliable warning measure become ever more important. The prospect of ammonia playing a major role in the transportation and storage of hydrogen fuel as green fuel might catapult the demand for ammonia storage and ammonia production.

The infrared optical sensing technology is designed to automatically monitor vast areas in a kilometer’s radius around each sensor. Therefore, entire industrial parks are covered by a handful of sensor, which drastically reduces complexity of the system. Based on a passive spectroscopic technology (FTIR) the scanfeld sensors provides chemical identification and quantification of airborne substances, mainly gases that can present dangers to plant operators, the environment, and the immediate neighborhood. It can identify ammonia, but also other relevant process gases.

The practical application and verification are demonstrated for a particular use case – the Chemelot park in The Netherlands. Here the installation of two scanfeld units allows the 24/7 monitoring of multiple processing units handling ammonia, urea, and melamine. With the connection to the operator’s DCS system the system is fully integrated in the operation of the plant and becomes an integral part of the plant management. The use of two units furthermore permits the localization and quantification of gas clouds in case of release events. The real time tomographic reconstruction of the clouds assists in providing precise warning of neighboring areas and is a direct benefit for accident mitigation.

Two aspects of the scanfeld solution are presented in more detail. Firstly, it represents an early warning solution which enables plant operators or emergency responders to react swiftly in case of unexpected emissions. In addition to that, the system collects data continuously which allows the long-term evaluation of industrial installations. Statistical methods as well as big data analysis can provide more insight about technical emissions, long term trends, and operations in general, thereby providing data for the optimization of production and preventive maintenance.

One of Chemelot's operators is AnQore, a supplier of acrylonitrile, econitrile, acetonitrile, ACH, sodium cyanide, hydrogen cyanide, ammonium sulphate and 1,4 diaminobutane. AnQore will present how the use of scanfeld has helped them to measure emissions that they were previously unable to measure, e.g. acrylonitrile. We will give practical examples of internal and external incidents involving hazardous gases such as acrylonitrile or ammonia and how they were able to deal with them safely. We show how real-time measurement data helps coordinating first response by the fire brigade. But we also present the day-to-day operation with a system that is routinely used by control staff. Dashboards and executive reports on asset integrity help to improve daily maintenance and plant optimization. AnQore will also show how they have been able to increase efficiency by using less operational staff during turnaround periods.