Unconventional Waste & Flare Gas Recovery System UFGRS in New Circular Economy

Keeping pace with the rest of the world on reducing the greenhouse gas emission, Saudi Aramco embarked on an aggressive program to minimize or cut routine flaring and energy resources used in producing oil and gas through policies, standards and inhouse innovations. The innovative Unconventional Waste & Flare Gas Recovery System UFGRS has supported the corporate strategy to minimize or eliminate routine flaring with minimum CAPEX and OPEX. This paper present in detail the innovative Ejector Based Unconventional Waste/Flare Gas Recovery System (UFGRS) without using gas compressors. The objective of the project is to eliminate the hydrocarbon gas release to atmosphere for any upset flameout scenario from GOSP-A massive flare & relief system and continuously recover 1.825 Billion Standard Cubic Feet per year (1.825 BSCFY) of valuable purge gas with the lowest CAPEX and OPEX. Conventional Flare Gas Recovery System (FGRS) using gas compressors is the normal choice deployed in many facilities to recover the routine gas flaring but it was found to have high CAPEX and OPEX (maintenance, high power consumption & labor intensive) compared to the value of the recovered gas. Also, the compressors based FGRS is more complex and less reliable than the ejector (static) based FGRS. In addition, the innovative FGRS is capable of handling high turndown ratios compared to convention compressor based FGRS. Also, additional innovative parts of this idea is the integration with the existing compression system and the use of only static equipment like ejectors, pipes, valves and water seal drums to recover the waste/flare gas. The idea has very low operating cost compared to conventional flare gas recovery systems, apart from significant gas savings. The unconventional FGRS system was proven successfully in December 2020. The system is currently in operation for 8 months without any interruption and managed to eliminate the total design routine gas flaring rate of 1.825 BSCFY GOSP-A producing facilities. Also, the project resulted in reducing CO2 emission by 106,000 ton/year which positively contributed to the kingdom circular economy initiatives. To further enhance the ejector based FGRS, a US Patent No. 10,429,067 was granted in October 2019 to utilize the Ejector based FGRS concept for Emergency flare gas recovery. The innovative idea includes utilizing multiple ejectors in parallel with provision of different ejectors operating at different pressures that will allow the system to be used to recover flare gas over a range of different flow rates corresponding to different emergency release scenarios. Also, two new patents are under filing to utilize the liquid as motive fluid instead of the gas.

Properties of Al2O3 Thin Films Grown by PE-ALD at Low Temperature Using H2O and O2 Plasma Oxidants

Al2O3 layers with thicknesses in the 25–120 nm range were deposited by plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition at 70 °C. Trimethylaluminum was used as organometallic precursor, O2 and H2O as oxidant agents and Ar as a purge gas. The deposition cycle consisted of 50 ms TMA pulse/10 s purge time/6 s of plasma oxidation at 200 W/10 s purge time. The optical constants and thicknesses of the grown layers were determined by spectroscopic ellipsometry, while the roughness was measured by atomic force microscopy, giving RMS values in the 0.29–0.32 nm range for films deposited under different conditions and having different thicknesses. High transmittance, ~90%, was measured by UV–Vis spectroscopy. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy revealed that, with both types of oxidants, the obtained films are close to stoichiometric composition and, with high purity, no carbon was detected. Electrical characterization showed good insulating properties of both types of films, though the H2O oxidant leads to better I-V characteristics.

Investigation of Regeneration Mechanisms of Aged Solar Salt

The scope of our study was to examine the potential of regeneration mechanisms of an aged molten Solar Salt (nitrite, oxide impurity) by utilization of reactive gas species (nitrous gases, oxygen). Initially, aging of Solar Salt (60 wt% NaNO3, 40 wt% KNO3) was mimicked by supplementing the decomposition products, sodium nitrite and sodium peroxide, to the nitrate salt mixture. The impact of different reactive purge gas compositions on the regeneration of Solar Salt was elaborated. Purging the molten salt with a synthetic air (p(O2) = 0.2 atm) gas stream containing NO (200 ppm), the oxide ion concentration was effectively reduced. Increasing the oxygen partial pressure (p(O2) = 0.8 atm, 200 ppm NO) resulted in even lower oxide ion equilibrium concentrations. To our knowledge, this investigation is the first to present evidence of the regeneration of an oxide rich molten Solar Salt, and reveals the huge impact of reactive gases on Solar Salt reaction chemistry.

Environmental Protection with HDPE Geomembranes in Mining Facility Constructions

The present work evaluated two high-density polyethylene (HDPE) geomembranes exhumed from mining facility constructions in Brazil. The MIN sample was exhumed from a pond for water use for the iron ore process after 7.92 years of exposure. The MIN2 sample was exhumed from a spillway channel of a ferronickel tailing dam after 10.08 years of service. The physical evaluations showed high depletion for antioxidants that work in the temperature range of 200 °C. The samples presented brittle tensile behavior and had similar behaviors between stress cracking and tensile. Low tensile elongation values and low-stress crack resistance were noted. The MIN2 sample presented a higher melt flow index (MFI) value and lower stress crack resistance. Thermogravimetric curves (TG) under synthetic air purge gas evaluation showed that both samples presented a similar behavior during the evaluation but had several mass losses. The results showed that exothermic and endothermic events occurred with loss of mass and showed no combustion events in the differential thermal analysis (DTA) curve evaluation. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis showed no changes in the samples’ behavior. Thus, the results of tensile, stress cracking, and viscosity properties can demonstrate that changes in polymer structure occurred after field exposures.

Proof-of-Concept of Detection of Counterfeit Medicine through Polymeric Materials Analysis of Plastics Packaging

The detection of counterfeit pharmaceuticals is always a major challenge, but the early detection of counterfeit medicine in a country will reduce the fatal risk among consumers. Technically, fast laboratory testing is vital to develop an effective surveillance and monitoring system of counterfeit medicines. This study proposed the combination of Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR-FTIR) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) for the quick detection of counterfeit medicines, through the polymer analysis of blister packaging materials. A sample set containing three sets of original and counterfeit medicine was analyzed using ATR-FTIR and DSC, while the spectra from ATR-FTIR were employed as a fingerprint for the polymer characterization. Intending to analyze the polymeric material of each sample, DSC was set at a heating rate of 10 °C min−l and within a temperature range of 0- 400 °C, with nitrogen as a purge gas at a flow rate of 20 ml min−an. The ATR-FTIR spectra revealed the chemical characteristics of the plastic packaging of fake and original medicines. Further analysis of the counterfeit medicine’s packaging with DSC exhibited a distinct difference from the original due to the composition of polymers in the packaging material used. Overall, this study confirmed that the rapid analysis of polymeric materials through ATR-FTIR and comparing DSC thermograms of the plastic in their packaging effectively distinguished counterfeit drug products.

Development of a Component-Level Hydrogen Transport Model with OpenFOAM and Application to Tritium Transport Inside a DEMO HCPB Breeder

This work continues the development of a numerical model to simulate transient tritium transport on the breeder zone (BZ) level for the EU helium-cooled pebble bed (HCPB) concept for DEMO. The basis of the model is the open-source field operation and manipulation framework, OpenFOAM. The key output quantities of the model are the tritium concentration in the purge gas and in the coolant and the tritium inventory inside the BZ structure. New model features are briefly summarized. As a first relevant application a simulation of tritium transport for a single pin out of the KIT HCPB design for DEMO is presented. A variety of scenarios investigates the impact of the permeation regime (diffusion-limited vs. surface-limited), of an additional hydrogen content of 300 Pa H2 in the purge gas, of the released species (HT vs. T2), and of the choice of species-specific rate constants (recombination constant of HT set twice as for H2 and T2). The results indicate that the released species plays a minor role for permeation. Both permeation and inventory show a considerable dependence on a possible hydrogen addition in the purge gas. An enhanced HT recombination constant reduces steel T inventories and, in the diffusion-limited case, also permeation significantly. Scenarios with 80 bar vs. 2 bar purge gas pressure indicate that purge gas volumetric flow is decisive for permeation.