Leak prevention is no longer a pipe dream
31/03/2023 Umicore Coatings Services Ltd
By Mark Naples, Managing Director at Umicore Coatings Services, for Process and Control Today.
The focus on lowering emissions is escalating rapidly. No industry is exempt from proactively helping the world achieve its commitments to address the impacts of climate change.
If humans keep modifying the climate, there is a risk of passing tipping points that launch irreversible change. Those of us alive today must fix a problem we did not entirely cause to help save people we will never meet from disasters they can scarcely imagine. This poses dilemmas unlike other philosophers, have confronted.
To achieve a once-in-a-civilisation transition from dirty to clean energy, we must encourage energy-intensive firms, such as manufacturers, to invest in new technology to reduce their energy use.
Emissions management is a journey. The hunger for fast, effective policy solutions to the climate threat is deep. The path to lowering emissions is fraught with complexities and new challenges requiring new skills and a measured approach, but it is a journey vital for future viability.
Finding a vision
Recent events have accelerated the global goal of achieving carbon neutrality to minimise climate change impacts. Key to this goal is managing and mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Corporate initiatives for emissions management, now driven by global regulations and policies, corporate responsibility, and customer demand, hold the key to a stronger future for businesses, individuals, and the environment
An understanding of actual emissions is required to start an effective emissions management journey. Reliable data from emissions enables smarter decisions and facilitates a successful emissions management approach.
Heavy industry, which makes up a quarter of the UK’s carbon footprint, is expected to be one of the most difficult areas to decarbonise without a step-change in technology. As the need to respond to the causes and impacts of climate change becomes increasingly urgent, emissions calculations and inventories are a vital first step towards mastering climatic risk.
Sustainably reducing emissions means planning for GHG outcomes in a multi-year plan. Planning for new technologies and deciding where to upgrade across a fleet of assets is required for capital efficiency.
As insights are gathered around key emission sources, targeted upgrades can be evaluated to reduce emissions and operational costs. The oil and gas sector is strongly positioned to simultaneously find synergies between emission reductions and operational savings. According to the International Energy Agency, an estimated 45% of those emissions can be mitigated at no net cost.
Reducing climate change impact, avoiding unplanned downtime from shifting regulatory penalties, and negative brand impact from community scrutiny is essential to business survival.
Transparency matters
Whatever form these legislative changes take, and no matter how broad or specific they might be, they will all share a common theme: improved transparency. In many industries, this manifests as an increased focus on health, safety, environmental, and social policies, collecting data to inform new and improved working methods. This should not be seen as a box-ticking exercise or another length of red tape to bind productivity; rather, it should be seen as a way to streamline and heighten productivity, resulting in less waste, higher-quality products and operational excellence.
As a powerful tool for detecting trace gases, laser absorption spectroscopy has been widely used in monitoring atmospheric greenhouse gases, pollution, and respiration processes, including human breath analysis. The detection is based on the light absorption when it propagates through a medium. And as interest in air quality has dramatically increased in recent years, major and growing sensor manufacturers are seeking high-performance filters at competitive prices.
The primary focus worldwide is reducing two damaging greenhouse gases (GHGs). Carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) - CO2 because it is by far the most prevalent GHG, and CH4 because of the initial severity of its impact after it is first emitted into the atmosphere. GHGs are generated at almost every step in the production, delivery, processing, or refining, and especially the consumption of fossil fuels. Practically every industry has a part to play in cutting emissions –the only way to do this is to identify where they can be cut. This means infrared (IR) sensors, as small as they are, have a vital role in our planet’s future.
Emitters within the sensor generate beams of IR light. This light passes through a sampling chamber containing a filter. The filter’s role is to block out the light of a certain wavelength, meaning only the required wavelengths make it past the filter, where the light reaches a detector. This detector measures the intensity (or attenuation) of the IR light, which can determine the precise concentration of gas that may be present. Different filters allow different wavelengths of light to reach the detector, which can, in turn, be used to detect other gases.
Non-dispersive infrared sensors, which often detect noxious, harmful and/or corrosive gases in the atmosphere in the parts per billion, remain a critical component when it comes to ensuring the health and wellbeing of the workforce, as well as being integral to a robust preventive maintenance system to ensure the site runs at optimal performance whilst complying with all Health & Safety policies.
Continuous monitoring
Owing to recent technological advances, the oil and gas industry, scientists, and authorities can tap into a growing set of tools to help them detect and quantify emissions. From specialised handheld cameras that help technicians pinpoint leaks to space-borne instruments that can quantify regional emissions, these tools are changing our understanding of emissions and expanding the available approaches toward target setting, monitoring, and compliance.
Often, facilities cannot operate without a network of piping systems joining equipment. The function of these versatile piping systems varies, but generally, they are used to process and transport large quantities of gas, chemicals and other process components as efficiently as possible.
Despite the many precautionary measures taken, leaks are a fairly common occurrence and a significant contributor to the industry’s overall greenhouse gas emissions. The leaks from bolted joints contribute 170 million metric tons of fugitive greenhouse gas (GHG) annually, according to Cumulus Digital Systems.
For decades, the industry has accepted these leaks and, by extension, their emissions as an unavoidable cost of doing business. To keep emissions as low as possible, quickly detecting leaks became an industry-wide priority. But as the world places a renewed focus on sustainability, even the immediate detection of leaks is no longer good enough.
Based on the rise of key enabling technologies — like miniaturised electronics, advanced algorithms, and low-cost access to space — and fuelled by increased international awareness, these novel solutions have the potential to improve our ability to identify and address pollution sources greatly.
A clear-eyed approach
With new digital technologies, leak prevention is no longer just a pipe dream. It’s a feasible reality that will help us all live greener lives, and launch headfirst into the new era of sustainability.
With over 35 years of experience in thin film design and manufacture, we develop custom solutions for low-volume prototyping, right through to full production scale-up of the most demanding optical coating applications.
We work closely with our customers through a consultative approach to develop custom IR designs that balance performance reliability with production efficiency. In doing so, we can offer a range of bandpass optical filters ideally suited to environmental, gas detection, and analysis applications, with a centre wavelength anywhere on the NIR to FIR spectrum with steep-edge and deep blocking capability.
By reducing fugitive emissions, organisations can do the right thing by proactively - and transparently - responding to the climate change crisis with tangible steps that lead to measurable results for both the environment and business.
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Umicore Coating Services Ltd
Kinnoull StreetDD2 3ED, DundeeUnited Kingdom
Tel: +44 1382 833022
Email: coatingservices@umicore.com
Web: https://ums.umicore.com/
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