Cooling Equipment for Hazardous Areas

Where the temperature of plant cooling water cannot be guaranteed and, faced with the inevitable cost of treating this water before disposal, refiners and fuel suppliers are looking for alternative ways of cooling analysers and analytical systems used for the determination of on spec products required to meet national standards such as ASTM, ISO and EN. This article looks at the importance of selecting the right type of closed loop chillers, compact air conditioning units and large HVAC systems when considering installing high precision equipment in harsh climates.

As refiners face the prospect of heavier crudes in the future, under standard refining processes, these crude oil sources produce a larger fraction of heavy products. At the same time, world wide demand for transportation
fuels is increasing, leading refiners to consider upgrading their existing plants. Results of studies into the need for and location of upgrading capacities have found that due to significant carbon policies in developed
countries, a shift in investment in upgrading capacity away from developed countries to developing countries can be seen. To ensure that products from these upgrades meet international standards for transportation fuels, care has to taken when considering online analysers and analyser systems to operate in specification where unsuitable environmental conditions are to be expected. Temperature is one of the biggest influences on the performance of analytical systems and the results derived from them. The requirement for precision cooling equipment rather than relying on inconsistent low quality plant cooling water is therefore extremely important when designing analy-tical systems to be located in these areas.