Is nitrogen purging necessary before starting up a chemical plant? Are there any regulatory requirements?
Thread Content
Is nitrogen purging necessary before starting up a chemical plant? Are there any regulatory requirements? If so, can the nitrogen purging be outsourced, without installing a nitrogen generation unit?
Before starting up chemical plants, nitrogen purging is required; strictly speaking, nitrogen displacement is necessary, with an oxygen content of less than 0.5% (sometimes 0.3%) considered acceptable. It is not mandatory to have a nitrogen generation system, and it seems that outsourcing the nitrogen purging process is not yet available.
Without a nitrogen generation unit, how can purging be carried out in the absence of a gas source?
Purging can be done using nitrogen or compressed air, but nitrogen must be used if the device needs to be purged. Aren’t you concerned that the medium used in your equipment will come into contact with air?
There are also many different types of chemical enterprises, and not all of them require nitrogen purging. In my opinion, if a facility needs it, specific process specifications will be established for that purpose; if the process equipment does not require such specifications, then there should be no mandatory requirement for it.
It is not necessarily required to use nitrogen for purging; compressed air can also be used, and finally, it must be verified that the atmosphere has been replaced with nitrogen or CO2
Before putting pipelines for materials such as liquefied gas and olefins into use, they must be purged with nitrogen to a level below 0.2% before the medium can be introduced to ensure safety.
What type of chemical processing unit is it? If it does not involve devices that are flammable or explosive, or if the reaction process does not require avoidance of contact with air or oxygen, then it is not necessary to use nitrogen for purging; compressed air can be used instead to keep the pipes clean. For flammable and explosive devices, before starting up after installation or maintenance is complete, they can be purged with compressed air and then flushed with nitrogen.
According to the process requirements, it is mainly used for nitrogen purging of pipelines or reactors to prevent oxidation!