Centrifuge Blanketing System
The dangers of flash fires and explosions is inherent is many plant operations. Specifically, the combination of volatile solvents and dusts in process vessels, such as a high-speed Industrial Centrifuge, where highly flammable conditions can be created. Unless proper safety measures are undertaken, this situation can potentially lead to catastrophic fires and explosions.
The potential hazards involved in the use of Industrial Centrifuges for the separation of solids from flammable liquids are gaining even greater awareness and importance because of a number of serious incidents involving personal injury or regrettably death. Methods of monitoring and avoiding such hazards are important to all those involved, not just the production operator and safety manager.
Inertizing systems are not new. There have been traditionally two approaches.
One is the so called timed-volume or continuous-purge approach, in which the vessel is flushed with inert gas initially, followed by a flow of inert gas that assumes that conditions will be maintained below the Minimum Oxygen Concentration level (MOC).
The second is a pressurised approach, in which the vessel is flushed, and then a positive pressure is maintained within the vessel with the inert gas.
