In this blog, we discussed industrial degassing services, the features, current drivers of degassing services, trends and emerging technologies, challenges & risks for the future.
Definition
Industrial degassing services refer to the specialized processes of safely removing hazardous, flammable, or unwanted gases and vapors from industrial equipment, such as storage tanks, pipelines, vessels, and processing plants. These services are critical for ensuring safety during maintenance, inspection, and cleaning operations, as well as for environmental compliance.
The Features of Industrial Degassing Services:
Diverse Degasification Methods: Services utilize a range of techniques tailored to the specific application, including:
Vacuum Degasification: The most common method, using a vacuum pump system to lower the pressure and extract dissolved gases from liquids or molten materials (e.g., steel, plastics, or water).
Thermal Degasification: Applying heat (e.g., steam) to the material to drive off gases, taking advantage of their reduced solubility at higher temperatures.
Membrane Degasification: Using hydrophobic, gas-permeable membranes to separate gases from a liquid stream.
Chemical Degasification: Involving the injection of chemicals that react with the dissolved gases to remove them from the stream.
Absorption/Stripping: Using a counter-current stripping gas stream (e.g., air or steam) in packed towers to absorb and remove dissolved gases.
Customized/Modular Solutions: Degassing systems are often designed to be modular and customizable to meet specific process requirements, flow rates, and space constraints of the client’s facility. This allows for scalable solutions that can adapt to evolving demands.
Integrated Control and Automation: Modern systems feature integrated monitoring, control panels, and automation for easy and reliable operation, including features like automatic cleaning and error reporting.
Portability/Mobility: For tank cleaning and field services, mobile degassing units are a key feature, allowing providers to bring the equipment to the client’s site, reducing logistics and downtime.
Safety and Environmental Compliance: A critical feature is the ability to align with local and state regulations for VOC destruction and emissions. Advanced systems feature anti-flashback burners and high destruction efficiency (up to 99.9% for VOCs) to reduce risk and environmental impact.
Efficiency and Performance: Services aim to improve overall process efficiency by reducing steam consumption, minimizing maintenance requirements, and offering rapid decontamination, which helps reduce turnaround times and operational costs.
Common Applications
Industrial degassing services are used across various sectors to ensure product quality, equipment longevity, and safety:
Oil & Gas and Marine: Removing hazardous gases like H₂S from drilling mud or tanks and deaerating seawater for enhanced oil recovery.
Metallurgy: Removing hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen from molten steel to produce high-quality, high-strength alloys for critical applications like automotive and aerospace components.
Chemical and Water Treatment: Purifying drinking water by removing foul-smelling or corrosive gases, and preventing corrosion/scaling in pipelines.
Manufacturing: Removing air and gases from clay in brick and tile production to prevent defects and improve product strength, or degassing creams, pastes, and plastics to improve physical properties and appearance.
Pharmaceutical/Biotechnology: Ensuring high-purity solvents for processes like High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) to guarantee accurate and reproducible results.
Current Drivers of Degassing Services:
Safety and Occupational Health Regulations: The most significant driver is the need to ensure a safe working environment. Degassing (gas freeing) removes dangerous, flammable, or toxic vapors from tanks and vessels, preventing explosions, fires, and exposure to hazardous chemicals for workers performing maintenance or inspections. Regulatory bodies such as OSHA mandate rigorous standards for these procedures.
Environmental Compliance: Regulations require proper management and disposal of hazardous waste and the prevention of atmospheric emissions, spills, and leaks. Degassing services often incorporate environmentally friendly methods and proper waste handling procedures to meet these standards.
Maintaining Product Quality and Preventing Contamination: Degassing is crucial when changing the contents of a tank to prevent cross-contamination from residual products. It also removes dissolved gases that can affect the stability, purity, or efficacy of substances in industries like pharmaceuticals, food processing, and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).
Operational Efficiency and Maintenance: Routine degassing and cleaning are part of essential maintenance plans to remove sludge, grime, and scales that can cause mechanical failures, blockages, or corrosion of the tank infrastructure. This proactive maintenance reduces costly unscheduled downtime and repairs.
Inspections and Repairs: Before any internal inspection or repair work can be carried out, tanks must be emptied, cleaned, and degassed to provide a safe and clear environment for technicians and inspectors.
Technological Advancements: The integration of robotics and automation in degassing and tank cleaning services is an emerging driver, as it further reduces human exposure to hazardous environments, improves efficiency, and ensures thorough cleaning.
Trends and Emerging Technologies:
Artificial Intelligence (AI): From general advancements to specific applications like Agentic AI and AI governance platforms, AI is a major focus.
Cybersecurity: A growing need for more robust defenses, including post-quantum cryptography, AI-driven security solutions, and disinformation security.
Connectivity: Pushing for greater speed and flexibility with 5G, and the expanding network of interconnected devices in the Internet of Things (IoT).
Computing Power: Quantum computing is advancing rapidly to solve complex problems, while edge computing brings processing closer to the data source.
Immersive and Spatial Computing: Augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and extended reality (XR) are creating new ways to interact with digital content, while spatial computing integrates digital information with the physical world.
Cloud Computing: Remains a major trend, providing flexible and scalable resources over the internet.
Biotechnology and health
Biotechnology: Innovations include gene therapy, cancer vaccines, and engineered living therapeutics.
Sustainable Tech: Focus on areas like green nitrogen fixation and carbon capture.
Health: Development of new approaches like nanozymes and the use of GLP-1s for neurodegenerative diseases.
Sustainability and infrastructure
Sustainability: A significant trend is the development of sustainable technology, including renewable energy storage, carbon capture, and bio-based materials.
Precision Agriculture: Using AI and IoT to optimize farming methods and reduce resource use.
Robotics: Advancements in robotics are increasing automation across manufacturing, healthcare, and service industries.
Digital Twins: Creating virtual replicas of physical objects or systems to analyze and optimize performance.
Voice Technology: Voice-activated assistants are becoming more integrated and improving user experience.
Space Tourism: The emergence of a commercial space travel industry.
Synthetic Media: The use of AI to create synthetic media, raising ethical questions alongside creative potential.
Challenges and Risks for the Future Industrial Degassing Services:
Stringent Environmental Regulations: Governments globally are imposing stricter rules to minimize emissions, particularly greenhouse gases (GHGs). Degassing service companies must constantly innovate to comply with these evolving standards and provide solutions that reduce their clients’ environmental footprint, often needing to provide accurate CO₂ impact calculations.
High Operational Costs: The need to reduce production costs while upgrading equipment to meet modern safety and efficiency standards is a constant challenge. This requires significant investment in new, advanced technologies which can be expensive upfront.
Managing Complex & Hazardous Materials: Degassing often involves handling highly flammable, toxic, or pyrophoric (materials that ignite spontaneously in air) substances. Ensuring complete and safe removal of these hazards during maintenance or decommissioning requires specialized expertise and rigorous safety protocols.
Technological Integration & Digitalization: The industry is moving towards automation and digital solutions for better efficiency and safety. A key challenge is integrating new digital platforms and AI with existing, often legacy, systems and overcoming internal resistance to cultural change and new technology adoption.
Talent Shortage: There is an increasing need for skilled operators and engineers who can manage advanced, automated systems and adapt to new technologies. Recruiting and retaining this specialized talent is a significant challenge.
Decommissioning Liabilities: With the energy transition, many assets are reaching their economic limits sooner than expected, leading to accelerated decommissioning. Accurately managing the significant liabilities associated with decommissioning is a complex financial and operational challenge.
Risks
Safety and Health Hazards: The primary risk remains the inherent danger of the job, including exposure to toxic chemicals, asphyxiating gases, and the potential for explosions if the concentration of gas is within the “explosive range”.
Reputational and Financial Damage: Accidents, spills, or breaches of environmental regulations can lead to substantial fines, legal action, and significant reputational damage, even if a third-party vendor is directly responsible.
Cybersecurity Threats: Increased reliance on connected operational technologies (OT) and automation makes industrial systems vulnerable to cyberattacks, which could disrupt operations or compromise safety systems.
Economic and Market Volatility: The industrial sector, particularly oil and gas, is subject to volatile prices and demand fluctuations. This unpredictability can impact the demand for services and profitability, making long-term planning difficult.
Equipment Failure: Aging equipment and the potential for corrosion or material fatigue pose a constant risk of operational failures or accidents, requiring rigorous maintenance and inspection regimes.
Conclusion
Industrial degassing services involve the safe and efficient removal of unwanted or hazardous gases and vapors from industrial environments, equipment, and materials. This critical process is essential for ensuring worker safety, operational efficiency, product quality, and environmental compliance across various industries.