Kemira-Kemi-Helsingborg

Acid Plant Database June 18, 2009

Owner	Kemira Kemi AB
Location	Industrigatan 83 P.O. Box 902 S-25109 Helsingborg Sweden
Background	-
Website	-
Plant	-
Coordinates*	56° 0' 48.5" N, 12° 42' 41" E
Type of Plant	Sulphur Burning
Gas Source	Elemental Sulphur
Plant Capacity	900 MTPD
SA/DA	-
Emissions	-
Status	-
Year Built	-
Technology	-
Contractor	-
Remarks	Early 1980's - Acid Cooling system changed from once through seawater cooling to heat recovery system used for district heating system. System used four (4) anodically protected shell and tube coolers connected in parallel pairs. Cost of system was 45 M SEK (including a 3.5 km ling pipe to district heating center). Payback less than a year. 1999 - Shell and tube coolers replaced with Alfa Laval semi-wekded plate and frame heat exchangers. Heat recovered for district heating is 530 MWh. Cost of system was 10.5 M SEK for new PHX and conversion of acid circulation system.
Pictures
General	-
References	-
News	February 4, 2005 - Thirteen persons, three of them Kemira employees, were hospitalised with eye and respiratory irritation after about 11,000 tons of sulphuric acid leaked from a collapsed tank at a Kemira chemicals plant in Sweden. All patients left the hospital later that same morning. According to a statement by Kemira to HInt, the accident was caused by the failure of a cooling water pipeline, running underground near the sulphuric acid tank. Water forced its way out of the pipe, eroding the ground near and round the sulphuric acid tank. This erosion damaged the ground under the tank and the protection basin round the tank resulting in a rupture of the tank. Sulphuric acid leaked out of the storage tank into to the protection basin which then over-flowed because it was filled with water from the broken pipeline. The acid leaked into the nearby bay, causing a cloud of sulphuric acid vapour to form over the water. Fire-fighters diluted and dispersed the cloud with water spray. A shelter-in-place was ordered. Police said the port area was closed off and all traffic, including ferries, stopped. An area within one kilometre of the plant remained closed until the evening of February 6 as local authorities wanted to make sure that another sulphuric tank near the first tank was not damaged in the accident. The Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat published a large photograph of the collapsed tank, which shows all the signs of having collapsed inwards: the roof had clearly fallen inwards and two areas of the tank wall were also bowed inwards. Such a collapse would be consistent with a tank collapsing under air pressure after a blocked vent allowed a partial vacuum to develop during unloading, but could also have occurred if the base beneath the tank collapsed, or if the tank.

MTPD - Metric Tonne per Day STPD - Short Ton per Day
MTPA - Metric Tonne per Annum STPA - Short Ton per Annum
SA - Single Absorption
DA - Double Absorption

* Coordinates can be used to locate plant on Google Earth


Sulphuric Acid on the Web^TM	Technical Manual	DKL Engineering, Inc.