Environmental conditions refineries

The importance of monitoring of environmental condition of the areas adjacent to oil industry facilities like refineries and petrochemical plants, oil storage facilities, and waste disposal areas is evident. 

As with troubleshooting, a proper debottlenecking exercise must consider the effects of feedstock, catalyst, operating conditions, mechanical hardware, environmental issues, and the ability of the rest of the refinery to handle the additional feed/product rates and quality. 

Boundary conditions for this risk assessment were established so that the risk assessment did not attempt to analyze secondary environmental effects associated with refinery releases such as their contribution to formation of ozone, acid rain, risks associated with occupational exposure, transportation of products or wastes, or the potential for accidental releases. 

Sweetening is an efficient catalytic process for the removal of sulfur present as mercaptans in light oils. Even when present in very small quantities, mercaptans cause foul odor, deterioration of additives in finished products and are corrosive. They are oxidized to innocuous disulfides by air under caustic condition and in the presence of cobalt phtalocyanine catalyst [1]. In industrial process, the use of caustic soda solution leads nevertheless to environmental problems in the refinery. 

---