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Vapor Combustion Systems

Superior Performance, Proven In The Field

John Zink Hamworthy Combustion Vapor Combustion Units (VCUs) have been proven in numerous gasoline, crude oil, ethanol, diesel, and other hydrocarbon and petrochemical applications including:

• Truck and rail car loading
• Barge and ship loading
• Storage tank transfer and breathing
• Barge and tank degassing
• Reactors, dryers and other process vents
• Pipeline breakout stations
• Soil remediation and groundwater cleanup
• API separators and other wastewater vents

Download The Vapor Combustion
Systems Brochure

Home  |  Products & Applications  |  Vapor Controls  |  Vapor Combustion Systems

Vapor Combustion Systems

Superior Performance, Proven In The Field

John Zink Hamworthy Combustion Vapor Combustion Units (VCUs) have been proven in numerous gasoline, crude oil, ethanol, diesel, and other hydrocarbon and petrochemical applications including:

 

• Truck and rail car loading
• Barge and ship loading
• Storage tank transfer and breathing
• Barge and tank degassing
• Reactors, dryers and other process vents
• Pipeline breakout stations
• Soil remediation and groundwater cleanup
• API separators and other wastewater vents

Download The Vapor Combustion Systems Brochure

Efficient, Effective,
And Easy To Use

Efficient, Effective, And Easy To Use

Our field-proven Vapor Combustion Units can achieve volatile organic compound (VOC) destruction efficiencies greater than 99.99 percent, resulting in hydrocarbon emissions less than 10 milligrams per liter of product transferred. In addition, our VCUs satisfy all the applicable requirements of 40 CFR 60.18.

 

Combustion is effective even on light hydrocarbons including methane and ethane. And unlike other technologies which may require substances such as refrigerants, coolants, lube oils, catalysts, adsorbents or absorbents that involve special handling and disposal procedures, our Vapor Combustion Units do not require any special fluids or materials for operation. As a result, John Zink Hamworthy Combustion VCUs are much easier to operate, with less hassle for plant personnel year-in and year-out.

Designed To Deliver

With vapor control experience dating back several decades, we’ve earned our reputation as a leader in research and development, manufacturing, service and support, and more. As a result, you can rely on John Zink Hamworthy Combustion VCUs to deliver where it counts:

Proven

• Enclosed combustors completely hide the flame while combusting hydrocarbon vapors in a controlled manner.
• Temperature control reduces fuel consumption and achieves higher destruction efficiencies.
• Open-flame combustors are a low-cost alternative when a visible flame and its resultant noise and radiation are not concerns. Open-flame combustors are capable of destruction efficiencies of 98 percent.

Flexible

• Skid mounted components reduce field installation time and cost. An enclosed stack can 
be flanged with the lower section skid mounted to save you even more.
• A vapor blower package can be provided in cases where the vapors have insufficient pressure. A single integrated system transfers and combusts the vapors.

Safe

• Detonation arrestors provide primary flashback protection. In marine loading applications, we work with the Coast Guard to provide a liquid seal exemption based on our proprietary burner and operating procedure.
• Anti-flashback burners allow safe combustion of explosive mixtures that are unsuitable for standard burners. These burners, manufactured at the John Zink Hamworthy Combustion facility, help prevent flashbacks and provide stable combustion over a wide range of flows and concentrations.
• Reliable, energy-efficient pilots, also manufactured at John Zink Hamworthy Combustion, provide a stable, continuous ignition source for the vapors.
• Burner staging logic ensures safe combustion.

Efficient

• VCUs available in highly efficient low-NOx configurations.
• Our Vapor Equalizer™ for gasoline or distillate vapors can reduce or eliminate auxiliary fuel usage by collecting gasoline vapors when rich, enriching vapors when lean, and averaging out vapor concentrations.
• A separate assist gas burner reduces fuel use for inert vapors, especially when vapors 
are lean.
• Premixing fuel with highly-oxygenated lean vapors can reduce fuel gas usage.
• Staged combustion and multiple assist air blowers reduce the amount of fuel gas required for higher turndown requirements.
• A stable burner design allows emission requirements to be met at lower operating temperatures, reducing fuel consumption.

Vapor Combustion System

1. A local or remote start signal is received, starting the assist air blower to purge the combustor of any existing combustibles.
2. After the purge, the pilot ignites and must be confirmed by the flame scanner in order for the operation to proceed.
3. Vapors pass through the vapor shutdown valve and detonation arrestor to be introduced into the combustor through the antiflashback burners and are ignited by a pilot.
4. Large systems introduce the vapors into the combustor in stages to achieve higher turndown and optimum performance.
5. An assist air blower provides a portion of the combustion air and mixing energy to ensure smokeless combustion of the vapors.
6. The assist gas control valve and quench air dampers modulate independently to maintain the combustor temperature.

Equipment Rental

To keep you up and running during installation, retrofitting or maintenance, we offer equipment rental including the PECS® (Portable Emission Control System), a self-contained, trailer-mounted vapor combustor that ensures stable, smokeless combustion and maintains temperature control over a wide range of vapor combustion.

Learn More

Worldwide Support

The John Zink Hamworthy Combustion worldwide service organization is the largest, most technically savvy team of its kind. Our service technicians are trained in the latest technologies to evaluate existing systems for upgrades and retrofits, to troubleshoot operations, and to help plan your next turnaround. Contact us today to learn more.

Contact Us To Learn More.

The Complete Package.

With John Zink Hamworthy Combustion, you get the convenience and simplicity of a single source of responsibility for the entire vapor control system—from dock safety units, vapor blower units and emission control devices to integrated control systems for each.

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Proven Reliability With Low-NOx Performance.

Increasingly stringent NOx emissions regulations can put a strain on your operation. The NOxSTAR Vapor Combustion System, however, combines our proven burner technology with emissions control of less than 0.02 lbs NOx/MMBtu so you don’t have to sacrifice reliability to get the performance you need.

Contact Us To Learn More.

Home  |  Products & Applications  |  Vapor Control  | Vapor Recovery

Carbon Adsorption Vapor Recovery Systems

Vapor Control Like No Other

Whether you need to reduce emissions through the recovery of valuable product or the destruction of waste gas, John Zink Hamworthy Combustion’s vapor control solutions simplify the process to make your operations cleaner and more efficient. We have more than 2,000 vapor combustion and vapor recovery installations worldwide. Our vapor control technologies are recognized as the “Best Demonstrated Technology” and the “Maximum Achievable Control Technology” by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. And our engineering and process expertise is recognized as leading the industry.

Home  |  Products & Applications  |  Vapor Control  | Vapor Recovery

Carbon Adsorption Vapor Recovery Systems

Vapor Control Like No Other

Whether you need to reduce emissions through the recovery of valuable product or the destruction of waste gas, John Zink Hamworthy Combustion’s vapor control solutions simplify the process to make your operations cleaner and more efficient. We have more than 2,000 vapor combustion and vapor recovery installations worldwide. Our vapor control technologies are recognized as the “Best Demonstrated Technology” and the “Maximum Achievable Control Technology” by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. And our engineering and process expertise is recognized as leading the industry.

The Most Advanced Vapor Recovery Technology In The World, Customized To Meet Your Needs

Our Carbon Adsorption Vapor Recovery Units (VRUs) safely prevent harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from being released into the atmosphere during operations that involve the transfer of evaporative hydrocarbons. Because our VRUs are highly adaptable for a variety of applications, our engineers can customize an emission control solution that optimizes your specific system. Our VRU systems are available with Adsorption-Absorption (ADAB™) and Adsorption-Condensation (ADCON™) configurations, as well as varying vacuum technologies to best suit specific facility needs.

 

Our VRUs are designed to meet worldwide standards such as ASME, ANSI, DIN, ATEX, EN, NEC, IEC and CENELEC.

• Marine terminals
• Process vents
• Railcar loading facilities
• Storage tank vents
• Truck loading racks

Our VRUs are configured in modular packages for greater flexibility.

Vapor Recovery Advantages

Vapor recovery has many advantages when compared with vapor combustion technologies. For example, vapor recovery:

 

• Can be installed in a hazardous area
• Requires no flame to serve as an ignition source
• Delivers a positive rate of return on investment
  (due to the value of the recovered product)
• Requires no vapor conditioning in marine loading
• Produces no trade-off pollutants
• Has no supplemental fuel requirements

 

John Zink Hamworthy Combustion vapor recovery solutions have earned worldwide acceptance as the standard for evaporative hydrocarbon vapor control, offering:

 

• Near ambient pressure and temperature operation, no vapor holder, no refrigeration
• Proven reliability
• Easy operation and maintenance
• The highest emission control efficiency
• Low capital and operating costs
• Minimal utility requirements (only electricity)
• Worldwide service and support with
emergency call-out available 24/7

Chemicals Suitable For Vapor Recovery

Our vapor recovery technology can be applied to a variety of applications involving a wide variety of chemicals. Some of these chemicals are:

• Benzene
• Butane
• Carbon Tetrachloride
• Chlorobenzene
• Chloroethane
• Chloroform
• Crude Oil
• Cyclohexane

• Dichloroethane
• Diesel Fuels
• Distillate Fuels
• Ethanol
• Ethyl Tert-Butyl Ether
• Ethylbenzene
• Gasoline
• Hexane

• Hexene
• Isobutane
• Jet Fuels
• Methanol
• Methyl Tert-Butyl Ether
• Methylene Chloride
• Naphtha
• Pentane

• Pentene
• Perchloroethylene
• Propane
• Toluene
• Trichloroethane
• Trichloroethylene
• Xylene

Proven To Meet The Most Stringent Standards

In typical installations such as truck, rail, tank and marine loading, our VRUs achieve emission control efficiencies of 99% or better. Most systems are designed to meet 1 – 10 milligrams of VOC released per liter of product loaded, or 1 – 10 grams per cubic meter of vapor vented. We have designed VRUs that meet stricter emissions standards including the TA Luft I standard of 150 milligrams of VOC released per normal cubic meter of vapor vented. We can also offer customized engineering evaluations and solutions to meet the TA Luft II standard.

Carbon Adsorption-Absorption Process with Dry Vacuum Pump

Our ADAB vapor recovery design is suitable for a wide variety of applications. It is most commonly used to control hydrocarbon vapor emissions at terminals handling petroleum fuel products. Our VRUs combine physical adsorption with absorption to recover hydrocarbon vapors and return the recovered product to storage.

 

Dry vacuum pump (DVP) technology offers significant advantages over other vacuum technologies:

 

• Reduced power consumption
• Elimination of ethylene glycol and associated equipment from system
• Decreased maintenance costs
• No product contamination
• Greater flexibility with products that can be loaded into the VRU

1. The VRU is equipped with two identical adsorber vessels filled with activated carbon. One adsorber is on stream receiving vapors in the adsorption mode while the other adsorber is off stream in the regeneration mode. Switching valves are provided to automatically alternate the adsorbers between adsorption and regeneration, which assures uninterrupted vapor processing capability. The VRU will automatically start when a loading operation is ongoing and shutdown in a standby mode when the operation is complete.
2. During adsorption, the inlet hydrocarbon vapor-air mixture to be processed flows up through the on stream adsorber vessel. In the adsorber, the activated carbon adsorbs the hydrocarbon vapor and allows clean air to vent from the bed with only minimal hydrocarbon content.
3. During regeneration, previously adsorbed hydrocarbon vapor is removed from the carbon and the carbon’s ability to adsorb vapor is restored. Carbon bed regeneration is accomplished with a combination of high levels of vacuum and purge air stripping. At the end of the regeneration cycle, the adsorber vessel is re-pressurized and then is placed back on stream.
4. A dry vacuum pump (DVP) is the source of vacuum for carbon regeneration. The DVP extracts concentrated hydrocarbon vapor from the carbon bed, and discharges directly into the recovery device, a vertically packed absorption column. To limit the vapor temperature inside the DVP, absorbent is circulated through the outside jacket and is injected directly into the vacuum pump.
5. In the absorber vessel, the hydrocarbon vapor from the DVP flows up through packing, while a hydrocarbon liquid flows down through packing. Inside the absorber, the vapor is liquefied, and the recovered hydrocarbon is returned back to the absorbent storage tank. A small stream of air and residual vapor exits the top of the absorber and is recycled to the on stream carbon bed for re-adsorption.
6. A lean absorbent supply pump and a rich absorbent return 6 pump are provided to circulate the required absorbent.

Carbon Adsorption — Absorption Process With Liquid Ring Pump

Liquid ring VRU systems operate along the same principles as dry systems, but with a liquid ring vacuum pump (LRVP) to regenerate the carbon beds. LRVPs have a proven history of successful operation and are available in a variety of configurations that can be tailored to fit your specific needs. In addition, we offer a specially formulated vacuum pump seal fluid — Z-SEAL™ — for use in this service.

1. The LRVP strips the rich hydrocarbon vapor stream from the adsorber and discharges it into a three-phase separator. Each LRVP requires a specially blended ethylene glycol-based sealing fluid to operate.
2. The separator is provided to allow efficient separation between the vacuum pump’s seal fluid, hydrocarbon condensate, and the non-condensed hydrocarbon vapor. The non-condensed hydrocarbon vapor is discharged from the separator vessel and recovered by means of a packed-bed absorber column in the same manner as previously described.
3. The seal fluid is pumped from the separator through a seal fluid cooler to remove the heat of compression.
4. The ADAB VRU based upon either dry vacuum pump or liquid ring vacuum pump technology may be provided with a high efficiency (HE-ADAB) vacuum system. The enhanced vacuum system consists of a rotary-lobed vacuum booster blower operating in series with the vacuum pump. The addition of the booster blower allows the carbon beds to be regenerated under a higher vacuum (lower absolute pressure) and provides significantly higher pumping capacity at high vacuums than is possible through the use of only the vacuum pump. An enhanced vacuum system more thoroughly regenerates the activated carbon and can, as a result, provide several potential benefits including use of less carbon, the achievement of lower emission levels, reduced system power requirement, and less overall capital cost.

Our Continuous Emissions Monitoring System typically yields around 50% in energy savings in the CEM Start mode of operation.

Continuous Emission Monitoring System

Our optional Continuous Emission Monitoring System (CEMS) includes an analyzer to measure hydrocarbon content in the VRU vent stream. The CEMS performs emission data averaging and can achieve VRU energy savings when utilizing the CEM Start mode of operation. The carbon beds are left on stream until their effective adsorption capacities have been expended before regeneration occurs. Typical energy savings using this mode of operation have averaged about 50%.

With VaporWatch™, engineers and maintenance personnel can securely access real-time online operating data directly from their computer, anywhere around the world. This remote access capability ultimately results in more efficient equipment operation, reduced downtime for loading terminal operations, and lower operating and maintenance costs.

With VaporWatch, you can monitor key system parameters and view real-time and historical data to identify trends.

This enhanced maintenance package records system data including pressures, temperatures, flows, and other vapor control parameters, and can be configured to output useful reports on system performance. Technicians can reference these reports to help diagnose and eliminate operational difficulties, predict equipment failures, and service equipment.

Equipment Rental

To keep you up and running during installation, retrofitting or maintenance, we offer equipment rental including the PECS® (Portable Emission Control System), a self-contained, trailer-mounted vapor combustor that ensures stable, smokeless combustion and maintains temperature control over a wide range of vapor combustion.

Learn More

Worldwide Support

The John Zink Hamworthy Combustion worldwide service organization is the largest, most technically savvy team of its kind. Our service technicians are trained in the latest technologies to evaluate existing systems for upgrades and retrofits, to troubleshoot operations, and to help plan your next turnaround. Contact us today to learn more.

Contact Us To Learn More.

Another JZHC Innovation.

After introducing rotary screw dry vacuum pump technology and installing more than 150 worldwide, we’ve introduced the latest dry vacuum pump innovation for VRUs: PureWorx SVT (Sliding Vane Technology). PureWorx SVT is an alternative solution to liquid ring technology that is more compatible with gasoline additives such as ethanol and reduces power consumption, waste disposal, and system complexity.

Contact Us To Learn More.

Recapture Product, Recover Profit.

Crude oil loading operations present many technical challenges for a vapor recovery system. We’ve developed a system that can cost-effectively recover vapor from crude and other light semi-refined products. Reducing emissions. Eliminating NOx. And recapturing cash.

Contact Us To Learn More.