It was late in the night on a clear, spring evening. Sam was tasked as part of the on-duty emergency response team when he got the dreaded call. “Sam, we have a problem!”

There was a breach in a feed line supplying a highly reactive chemical and he and his team needed to perform an immediate response.

When he arrived at the scene, after donning their proper gear, he assessed that several plant personnel had already secured the leaking line, but unfortunately about 50 gallons had spilled on the cement.

Standard emergency response procedure included “flooding” the chemical with firefighting foam. However, when they started to follow that procedure, the chemical began reacting, producing clouds of toxic vapor.  This happened because the foam had a water constituent.  So they immediately stopped.

Sam then remembered that the plant environmental team had ordered and received a product called PetroGuard, which he knew was designed for just this type of response.

He and his team quickly got the pails of PetroGuard out of storage and began applying the dry, granular polymer to the liquid spill that was not yet covered by foam.

He and his team were amazed to see that the PetroGuard immediately immobilized and absorbed the chemical, reducing and essentially stopping the fuming altogether. The solidified matrix was then easily collected with shovels and brooms, bagged and secured for disposal.

Meanwhile, the small amount of chemical that was sprayed with fire-fighting foam still had the chemical plus the foam to deal with.

PetroGuard is a response product that absorbs on a molecular level called “enhanced molecular capture”. This process is essentially irreversible.  Which means that once absorbed, chemicals like the one Sam was dealing with are permanently solidified which means they can no longer release liquid chemical even under pressure.

Using PetroGuard will enhance the efficiency of your response plan.  So, before you end up with an even bigger problem, give us a call 860 350-2200.