Mitigating the Risk of Chemical Fumes

Safely storing chemicals such as hydrochloric acid or hydrogen peroxide that emit chemical fumes requires special considerations. You must implement special methods of venting in order to reduce the harmful vapors and pressure that could endanger your employees, your equipment, or the environment. To protect these three things, Poly Processing developed a fume scrubber for potentially harmful chemical storage applications. 

What is a Fume Scrubber?

Scrubbers are installed to remove or neutralize the harmful substances emitted from combustion, or in this case, the storage of chemicals. There are two main kinds of scrubbers, dry scrubbers and wet scrubbers. Dry scrubbers are used to remove acid gases primarily from combustion sources. Wet scrubbers function by contacting the target compounds with a scrubbing solution. Here at Poly Processing, our tanks for fuming chemicals include a wet scrubber solution called the PolyScrub.

Choosing the PolyScrub for Your Application

As with typical wet scrubbers, the PolyScrub system introduces water or a specific scrubbing solution supplied by the end user through a submerged plenum. The fumes percolate up and through the scrubbing solution, then vent out of the top of the scrubber system. The PolyScrub system can be custom built for your specific application and automation requirements.

When fitting a PolyScrub system, normally a 6" vent pipe is installed in the bulk tank. The pipe elbows over and down and connects to a flange attached to the top of the scrubber. This allows the bulk storage tank to vent into the scrubber and not into the atmosphere. Scrubbers are typically sized for the bulk storage tank being used and the chemical needing to be scrubbed.

Safety Beyond the Fume Scrubber

After adding a scrubber to your storage system, there are a few other components that you will want to add to ensure safety. These components include:

• Fume-tight manway covers: These lids keep fumes from seeping out of the tank and into the air. They can also be retrofitted to a tank if you decide to use them after you've already constructed the tank system.
• OR-1000: OR-1000 is designed to address the effects of highly oxidizing chemicals by adding an additional chemical barrier of antioxidant resin to the inner surface of the tank.

To learn more about the PolyScrub  download your copy of our guide,

Ready to start building your ideal system? Reach out to one of our chemical storage tank experts today.