Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Widespread implementation of the results of research by scientists of Uzbekistan annually allows to save billions of soums, master the production of products competitive on the world market, and successfully implement the program for localizing production at oil and gas enterprises.

One of such effective innovative developments is floating pontoons of an improved design to prevent evaporation and extinguishing of sudden ignition of oil products inside the tanks.

According to world statistics, the loss of gas condensate and oil products from evaporation ranges from 0.5-1.7% of the total volume of processed raw materials. Due to climatic conditions in the Republic of Uzbekistan (fishing reservoirs, as a rule, are located in hot desert zones), these standards are much larger and amount to 1-3%, which explains the urgency of solving this problem for us.

The Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan conducted scientific development and the search for solutions to the problems posed. As a result, in our country, for the first time, new floating pontoons from polyethylene terephthalate, which have no analogues in the world, were designed, and the technology for their manufacture was developed.

The new design polyethylene terephthalate (PET) pontoon is designed to eliminate the loss of light hydrocarbons due to evaporation of oil products and gas condensate during the reception, tempering, storage and extinguishing of a sudden fire in tanks. Such a pontoon is filled with a special fire-fighting, explosion-proof solution and inert gas.

Its advantages are that it covers liquid gas condensate in the tank by 98 percent, which means that it practically does not leave a free surface for the evaporation of hydrocarbons. In addition, a technical solution is provided for fire extinguishing in each individual element of the pontoon, based on the principle of responding to fires.

To date, pontoons of iron-float structures with missing factors have been used: corrosion instability, flooding, large mass, jamming. Pyrophoric deposits form on the surface of such pontoons, which cause a fire with an explosion. In 2000, a fire occurred at the Kokdumalak fields due to pyrophoric deposits, which led to enormous economic and socio-environmental damage.

Technological effect on the conservation of light hydrocarbons in one tank of 2000 sq.m. is 240 tons per year. Successfully passed pilot production tests on the use of floating pontoons, and they were implemented in gas and oil refining enterprises of Uzbekneftegaz JSC of the Republic. A patent has been received for the industrial design “Pontoon device for tanks”.

To develop the project, equipment was purchased and delivered from the People's Republic of China, installation, installation and commissioning of technological equipment was carried out in the industrial zone of Mirzo Ulugbek district. To date, more than 150 thousand pieces of floating pontoon have been produced and delivered to customers.

The introduction of these projects into production will save foreign currency funds, the introduction of domestic innovative products to foreign countries will strengthen the country's export potential.