Fugitive emissions: The matter of imperfect seals

The Effect of Sealing System on Zero Fugitive Emissions and Global Warming

“…These properties mean that VOC's are a major contributor to the formation of "Summer Smog". The prevention of VOC emissions is therefore one of the most important issues facing the operation of many industrial processes [1,4,5].…”

“…To put the scale of the challenge into perspective, fugitive emissions in the USA have been estimated to be in excess of 300,000 tonnes per year, accounting for about one third of the total organic emissions from chemical plants, and inevitably mirrored in Europe. Irrespective of any environmental impact which it may cause, this is a tremendous financial burden on industry because it represents a huge loss of potentially valuable materials, and cause of plant inefficiency [4]. Yet in most instances, the true costs are not appreciated, since many of the costs associated with fugitive emissions are invisible ( Figure 1) [1][2][3][4].…”

“…Irrespective of any environmental impact which it may cause, this is a tremendous financial burden on industry because it represents a huge loss of potentially valuable materials, and cause of plant inefficiency [4]. Yet in most instances, the true costs are not appreciated, since many of the costs associated with fugitive emissions are invisible ( Figure 1) [1][2][3][4]. The values of fugitive emissions will depend upon [1,2]: A significant proportion of fugitive emissions can be losses from unsealed sources, including storage of liquid and gas tanks, open-ended (non-blanked) lines, pressure-relief valves, vents, flares, blow-down systems, spills and evaporation from water treatment facilities.…”

“…Fugitive emissions by source type [3] Others 15% As can be seen Figure 2, valves are considered to account for approximately 50-60% of fugitive emissions. Furthermore, the major proportion of fugitive emissions comes from only a small fraction of the sources [1][2][3][4]. Leaking losses are often hard to determine since there are many potential sources and they are very dependent on how well the installation is operated, maintained and inspected.…”

Fugitive Emission Reduction through Optimization

“…Most of the study conducted by past researcher is related to strategies to overcome the leakage from the valve. Regardless the study on the sealing material and the successfulness of it to reduce the FE, due to the highly cost of maintenance and services to change the equipment, most of the industry do not see the important of it as the loss on cost is invisible and can be neglected (Szweda, 2000). According to the Cornelsen (2006), there are two problems from valve that causes the emissions which are from the body to bonnet joint which was readily solved and also from the valve stem packing.…”