CarboVac

CarboVac is supplier of carbon adsorption vapour recovery systems for truck- , railcar- and marine loading facilities at refineries and petroleum product storage terminals. The company was formed by the managing team of the vapour recovery department of Symex Company in 2005 when this company went bankrupt after a project for the supply of marine loading arms in Russia turned out bad. The CarboVac team of engineers has developed the very innovative technology of using dry screw vacuum pumps in their vapour recovery systems in 1998 and today CarboVac offers the most innovative dry process available on the market. CarboVac is recognized worldwide by many of the major Oil- and Oil Product Storage Company’s for her simple and reliable systems. The CarboVac Dry Vacuum Process in conjunction with a very sophisticated PLC and PC based Process Management System results in a system with the best availability record, the lowest energy consumption and longest carbon lifetime expectancy.

Apart from a large number of truck loading VRU's, CarboVac is currently building many medium and large systems for marine loading applications for the recovery of vapours from crude oil, gasoline, naphtha, platformate, reformate, MTBE, ETBE, alcohols and other derivates. The flexibility of the process developed by CarboVac provides important advantages compared with technologies based on liquid ring vacuum pump (using seal fluids) and membrane systems. The use of dry screw vacuum pumps allows recovery of product vapours from water soluble products, like alcohols, which are widely used in motor spirits nowadays. Other important features of the dry screw pump are the possibility to use variable frequency drives to perfectly control the energy consumption, the load conditions on the activated carbon and the vacuum level to achieve the various emission requirements.

CarboVac has installed Vapour Recovery Systems on numerous applications in passed period for a large diversity of products and climatological conditions. A very large VRU was installed on the crude oil loading terminal of Transneft at Kosmino, at the end of the eastern Siberian Crude Oil Pipeline. This unit with a capacity of 14 000m3/h is operating under very cold conditions. The recovered product is reabsorbed in the crude oil itself, by circulating product from the loading line via the VRU and back to the loading line.

A VRU on the terminal of WOQOD Qatar is on the contrary running at very hot conditions. To enable re-absorption of the recovered vapours in one of the products stored at the terminal, it is necessary to cool the liquid to reduce the true vapour pressure (TVP). Here a Cold Water Unit (Chiller) is used in combination with heat exchangers to economise the energy consumption.

A large number of CarboVac Vapour Recovery Systems in a capacity range of 1 000 to 12 500 m3/h of divers petroleum products are recently installed on various marine loading terminals in Holland. The Dutch government applies very low emission limits, as were applicable before in Germany.  As it concerns vapours from petroleum products, it would be wise to study the overall benefit for the environment in conjunction with the energy consumption. Most electrical power is fabricated from petroleum product or gas. A recent study done by one of the major physical laboratories TNO in Holland shows that the optimum emission level for the environment for a CarboVac (technology with the lowest energy consumption) is around 1 to 2 grams of HC per m3 of air vented to atmosphere. For technologies using more energy the optimum is closer to 5 g/m3. A typical feature of activated carbon systems is, that the emissions of toxic components, HAP's like benzene, are removed very effectively even at emission levels up to 35g/m3.

For example:

A CarboVac VRU designed for a maximum emission level of 10g/m3 emits on average around 1g/m3. This is due to the fact that maximum design throughputs and inlet vapours concentrations hardly ever occur simultaneously. The total emitted mass of hydrocarbons on a terminal with a yearly throughput of 1 000 000m3 of light petroleum products is around 1 000kg. The energy consumption of a CarboVac VRU for 1g/m3 will be around 80 000kWh per year. To achieve an emission less than 0,15g/m3 the energy consumption increases to around 180 000kWh per year.

To produce the extra 100 000kWh net electrical energy around 35 000kg of organic fuel needs to be burned in a power station. The fugitive losses to produce this fuel and unburned hydrocarbons from the power station will approach the same level of total mass emission of hydrocarbons to atmosphere as we wanted to prevent in the first place. On top of that the emissions from the power station will be accompanied by more toxic emissions of COx, NOx and SOx. The environmental aspirations of the Dutch government, how well ever intended, are therefore better not taken as an example. Certain regions in Germany have already abandoned this too stringent legislation.

The CarboVac Dry Vacuum Systems are suitable for medium and high concentrated hydrocarbon containing gaseous effluents. For low concentrations of hydrocarbons and solvents (concentrations less than 50g/m3) CarboVac also offers gaseous effluent treatment systems based on regeneration by hot nitrogen. Also this particular system has been developed by CarboVac with the intention to find the optimal solution with regards to cost efficiency and the environment. The system can be used for the recovery of vapours from toluene, xylene and other solvents.

CarboVac is happy to consult you for any of your gaseous effluent emission problems and offers her support to find the best solution in the early stages of your project.

Contact:

CarboVac Sarl

38 rue de Paris

94470 Boissy Saint Léger

France

Tel: +33 1 45 98 00 17

Fax: +33 1 43 82 68 84

Info@carbovac.com

www.carbovac.com