Proposed Solution for Environmental Improvement of Burning Pits

Safe operation and maintenance of every petroleum processing unit requires either intermittent or emergency relief of liquid hydrocarbons out of the unit’s battery limit. Current relief practice is to release liquids down into earthen pits, so-called “Burning Pits”, to be ignited and burnt subsequently. No kind of lining is applied to limit hydrocarbon leakage through surface of the pits. This paper presents an engineered bi-component solution to make burning pits more environment-friendly. The proposed solution as the first component includes a detailed procedure for supply of a sealing water layer into and discharging excess water out of the pit. This procedure employs a buoyancy-controlled device similar to automatic radial gates conventionally used for water level control in irrigation channels. The procedure is developed to meet various water accessibility conditions in remote areas.The second part of the solution is design of an efficient surface liner. An appropriate burning pit liner shallprovide for acceptable impermeability, high fire resistance and cost-effectiveness among other requirements. While upon comparison to a row of conventional liners, low-slump silica-fume-modified plastic concrete is found to be most efficient both from leakage control and economical standpoints, a steel-fibre-reinforced refractory concrete made of high-alumina cement and carbonate aggregates is believed to exhibit the least compressive strength loss and cracking when exposed to intermittent fire. A new concrete liner composed of plastic concrete and refractory concrete ingredients is predicted to give desirable target capabilities but it remains to be verified experimentally.

کلیدواژه ها:

petroleum industry ، environmental protection ، plastic concrete ، refractory concrete