Emission Reduction Technology + Internet of Things: Make VOCs Nowhere to Flee

Open "Huigan Yun" mobile phone APP, you can see the monitoring data of 177 sealing points in four sets of equipment of Yangzi Petrochemical Company. If any sealing point leaks, the notification message will be sent to the managers at the first time. This is the VOCs emission reduction and intelligent monitoring Internet of Things system jointly developed by Yangzi Petrochemical, Sinopec Engineering Construction Co., Ltd. (SEI) and Huigan (Shanghai) Internet of Things Technology Co., Ltd. This intelligent system is like weaving a network of heaven and earth, which makes VOCs to be monitored in production nowhere to escape, and creates good "green benefits" for enterprises.

According to the investigation and research of Qingdao Angong Institute, SEI and Yangtze Petrochemical Company, the inaccessible sealing points of oil refining, chemical industry, storage and transportation equipment and pipelines are the places where hidden safety hazards are concentrated.

"Unreachable sealing point is the undetectable sealing point, which usually contains toxic and harmful substances, or is far from the high point of the device, such as at the top of the tower or where there is no platform, so it is difficult to inspect or inconvenient to detect." The responsible person of Yangzi Petrochemical Safety and Environmental Protection Department said that the equipment and pipelines of refinery and chemical plants contain a large number of fire dangerous substances of Class A and major hazard source media. These unreachable sealing points are wide in many aspects. They are easy to leak when they are operated under high-low temperature alternating or high-temperature hydrogen conditions for a long time. However, the existing instruments are difficult to detect quantitatively and have potential safety hazards. Similar situation exists in the four sets of units of Yangtze Petrochemical Company, such as restructuring, xylene, hydrocracking and benzene production. With aging of some equipment and valve fittings, the sealing point has a high risk of leakage. Since 2016, Yangtze Petrochemical, SEI and Huigan have jointly developed an Internet of Things (IOT) system for VOCs emission reduction and intelligent monitoring. Over the past three years, the R&D team has successfully developed bag-type leakable and anti-escaping sealing components, low-power node monitoring equipment, data centralized coordinator and intelligent Internet of Things monitoring system, which integrates on-line collection of hazardous gas leakage, source emission reduction and on-line continuous monitoring technology, and forms the emission reduction of flammable, explosive, toxic and harmful gases under special locations and working conditions. Continuous monitoring and security early warning technology. Huang Zichao, deputy director of reforming unit in Yangzi Petrochemical Aromatic Hydrocarbon Plant, introduced that the system has two advantages: first, the structure and principle of the sealing gasket used in the system are unique, compared with ordinary gaskets, the sealing effect is better and the leakage risk is greatly reduced; second, after the implementation of the intelligent Internet of Things system, auxiliary sealing mechanism is added to the gaskets to realize leakage monitoring. Once a leak occurs, relevant data and notifications are immediately pushed to managers. At present, the system has been applied in 4 units of reforming, xylene, hydrocracking and benzene production in Yangzi Petrochemical Aromatic Hydrocarbon Plant. The application results showed that VOCs emission was significantly reduced, including 86.56% reduction in reforming unit, 70.32% reduction in xylene unit, 88.04% reduction in benzene plant, 47.05% reduction in hydrocracking unit and more than 60% reduction in comprehensive emission of four units.

system can realize real-time monitoring of sealing points and leak rate control at any time, accurately track leakage sources and accurately measure leakage. Once the leakage has a tendency to expand, operators can take preventive measures to effectively reduce air pollution and material leakage losses caused by leakage. It can also help operators to find potential safety hazards in production site ahead of time and improve production. Safety and reliability. From the operational data, the reliability of real-time monitoring and security early warning of the system is more than 99%, and it has good early warning reliability. At the same time, the system on-line also brings better economic benefits to enterprises. Four sets of devices have 177 non-reachable sealing points, and one overhaul cycle can reduce cost and increase efficiency by more than 4 million yuan.