Forbes have recently installed a 36% concentration Hydrochloric acid tanker offloading and storage facility for Acrow Galvanising, a major galvanising company in Essex.

With ever increasing public concern and more rigorous legislation, the need to contain potentially dangerous and noxious fumes produced during chemical storage is becoming more and more important. When storing chemicals such as Hydrochloric acid the normal method of scrubbing outlet fumes is to use a caustic solution to efficiently remove the acid fumes. This can however cause further problems in that it produces a chemical waste stream which must then be disposed of safely.

Forbes have recently installed a 36% concentration Hydrochloric acid tanker offloading and storage facility for Acrow Galvanising, a major galvanising company in Essex.

A Minibulk bunded storage tank with a capacity of 25 tonnes, an offloading TUF pump and scrubber system were part of the package.

The tank is vented through a compact scrubber system which has been designed to use water as the scrubbing liquor.

This environmentally friendly approach means that the system produces no waste stream.

The scrubber produces an acid solution which is utilised in the customer's process.

The scrubber design means that all fumes produced even during tank filling is captured and reduced to a safe level.

With access to the unit being difficult due to restricted space, part of the design criteria for the system was to reduce the need for frequent operator input to the system.

This innovative design is controlled via a control panel to give automatic packing wetting during static storage and an overflow vapour seal pot which is automatically refreshed to prevent fuming.

The waste acidic scrubbing liquor is pumped over into the process just prior to it giving off acidic vapour.