The RemScan technology has a wide range of applications in the pipeline and oil and gas industries; including emergency spill response, leak detection and environmental compliance.
“We have had a strong response from the oil and gas and petrochemical industries because they can see the immediate cost benefits of the technology, particularly for remote areas,” says Ziltek Commercial Manager Chris Lawrence.
Emergency spills in a remote location often involve machinery being removed from productive work. Once the contaminated soil has been excavated, there is a 5-10 day wait for laboratory analysis results to validate that the remaining soil is clean. If these results show residual contamination, the equipment has to be remobilised to the site. With RemScan, the soil can be delineated and validated on the same day, leading to significant cost savings.
The rugged hand-held instrument shoots an infrared beam at the soil and the reflected beam is captured by a detector. The user simply pulls the trigger and waits 15 seconds for a total petroleum hydrocarbon reading in mg/kg. The software is operated through a user-friendly PDA interface that is connected wirelessly to the instrument. The calibration process takes a few minutes using inert reference materials – there are no consumables.
The home-grown Australian technology has been developed by Ziltek in collaboration with CSIRO and was released to the Australian market in December 2012. The development team was recently a finalist in the 2013 Australian Shell Innovation Challenge.
“We will be going global this year,” says Mr Lawrence.
Ziltek will be demonstrating the technology at the upcoming APIA Annual Convention and Exhibition in Adelaide, South Australia.
Ziltek also sells a range of other products for hazardous waste and contaminated soil management including RemActivâ„¢, a liquid bioremediation enhancer for spill clean-up, and RemBindâ„¢, a chemical fixation reagent for binding up organic contaminants in soil to prevent them leaching.
For more information visit www.ziltek.com or call Chris Lawrence on (08) 8152 9390.
