Fuel vapor reduction - Stage 1
Environmental protection in the fuel industry is a topic associated mainly with refineries and combustion cars. Undoubtedly, vehicle exhaust pipes, power plant chimneys, refinery installation torches are nowadays a significant source of air pollution.
Less known in the society but equally significant source of emissions are fuel reloading and refueling operations carried out at service stations, as gasoline contains within it VZ dangerous for humans - volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
The government of the European Union countries has long recognized the need to reduce the vapors of volatile organic compounds and introduces relevant requirements into the regulations.
VOC emissions from the storage and distribution system accounted for nearly 500,000 tons per year, which is about 5% of all VOC emissions from man-made in the European Union.
Pollution caused by vapors accounted for a significant proportion of air pollution, especially in urban and suburban areas.
Such guidelines were laid down in Directive 94/63 / EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 December 1994 on the control of volatile organic compounds resulting from the storage of fuel and its distribution from terminals to service stations. Further reduction is forced by the Goeteborg Protocol (UNECE) and the EU directive NEC4.
In Great Britain, the use of 1-stage VRS systems contributed to a reduction of VOCs emission by 70% in the years 1990–2006.
By design, 100% of gas stations in the European Union today are equipped with VRS-I devices. The first stage of vapor recovery has been used for many years in both Poland and other EU countries at fuel terminals and gas stations, serving to capture vapors that would normally leak into the atmosphere during transhipment processes (tank filling, tank loading at the terminal and unloading) at gas stations).
You can read about the second stage of VRS-2 fume reduction here.