Permeator Fact Sheet
In the United States, BP Amoco has successfully operated ARID's PERMEATOR system for over 18 months at a retail refueling facility located in Warrenville, Illinois. The system has been operating automatically and unattended since October 1998 at a Stage II equipped station pumping about two million gallons of gasoline per year.
Internationally, five dispensing facility units based on GKSS membrane technology are operating in Germany, five units are running in Luxembourg, one unit in Switzerland, and one unit is running in the UK. The German applications are TUV Rheinland, Cologne; DEA, Wiesbaden; BK, Munich; BK, Herrsching; Municipal refueling station in Gaggenau.
In Luxembourg, two units are installed at Copal ARAL, and each system serves a dispensing facility with annual throughput of approximately 2.5 million gallons of gasoline. The first unit has been running for eighteen months, and the second unit has been operational for about one year. The performance of both units is currently being monitored in the framework of a DGMK project. DGMK is a technical organization that conducts projects for all the German oil companies. Shell, Texaco and Kuwait Oil have ordered and recently taken delivery of an additional three units for use in Luxembourg. These units have recently been installed and commissioned. In Luxembourg, the membrane vapor recovery system is considered best available technology (BAT) and all new stations being constructed in densely populated areas must use the system.
ARID has recently expanded worldwide marketing to include representation in the following areas: Australia, Mexico, South America, Hong Kong (SAR of China), Malaysia, Israel and South Africa.
Bulk terminal gasoline vapor recovery systems using the GKSS membranes have been successfully operating throughout the world since 1989. Each of the 66 systems installed since 1989 has been consistently operating in tank farms and ship loading terminals without any membrane replacements. The performance and long-term stability of these hydrocarbon-selective membranes are commercially proven and such systems are considered an established technology in Europe.
ARID's system is described in "Membranes, Molecules and the Science of Permeation", TP Tiberi, Petroleum Equipment & Technology (PE&T), April 1999; page 30-34.
Patents owned, assigned to or licensed by ARID include the following; 4,994,094; 5,537,911; PCT/DE 95/00383; 5,220,799; 5,367,882; 6,059,856. Also, the following US and European patents cover GKSS process technology, membrane and module technologies: 4,673,418; 4,695,380; 4,818,452; 4,933,085; 5,076,923; DE4214551; 0637987, and 0752974.
Inventory loss due to evaporation typically ranges from 0.16% to 0.50% of gasoline throughput. PERMEATOR reduces these losses by more than 95%.
The energy consumed by operation of the system represents only about .01% to .03% of the energy recovered by the system.
ARID Technologies, Inc., 1112 W Ontario, Suite 3E, Oak Park, IL 60302. Tel: 708-557-0297; Fax: 708-445-3208.