The first “episode” of this important milestone dates back to May 2020 with the publication of the call for tenders by The Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) through the agency for the sustainable management of persistent organic contaminants (POPs) in response to the obligations of the Stockholm Convention.

www.popsegypt.com

The tender, financed by the World Bank / GEF, was entitled: Decontamination of PCB-Containing transformer oil – Supply and installation of equipment, and training of local operators, for dechlorinating and purification of 1000 tons of PCB contaminated oil, which will produce clean oil suitable for reuse in electrical equipment (transformers).

Main milestones:

• July 2020, Sea Marconi responds to the tender
• November 2020, Sea Marconi receives the official award following the opening of the envelopes and the analysis of the proposals
• June 2021, shipment of materials and accessories from the Sea Marconi headquarters in Collegno, Turin (Italy) to the port of Alexandria in Egypt
• July 2021, shipment of the decontamination plants from the Sea Marconi headquarters in Collegno, Turin (Italy) to the port of Alexandria in Egypt

At the moment the lifts are sailing towards Alessandria with expected arrival on Monday 9th; the next steps, presumably in October 2021, are commissioning, the on-site demonstration of the technological capacity of the plants with the training of local operators aimed at autonomous use.

In this case, Sea Marconi has created and deployed a winning technology: BAT and BEP, mobile and modular, which allows to perform the treatment in situ, in a closed circuit, without emptying the transformer, in on-load mode, i.e. maintaining the transformers in service during PCB decontamination. The latter feature was particularly successful in a scenario, such as the Egyptian one, which will focus on transformers used in national electricity production and transmission. The Sea Marconi solution will therefore make it possible to move the treatment plants in the vicinity of the transformers to be decontaminated and to treat them without putting them out of service.

The plants by Sea Marconi (together with the patented reagents and the operating methodology, i.e. the CDP Process® system) will allow the Egyptian ministries of the Environment and Energy to meet the obligations of the Stockholm Convention on the sustainable management of persistent organic pollutants (POPs).
At the end of the project, that is when all the transformers will have a stable contamination below 50 mg/kg of PCB, the plants produced by Sea Marconi can still be used for maintenance activities aimed at extending the life cycle of oils and electrical equipment.

Even Iran has put the PCB problem “on the agenda”: a special analysis was in fact dedicated to this topic during the “POP’s management workshop” held on 9 November in Tehran. The Iranian Ministry of the Environment and Industry is currently exploring the different solutions for management (inventory, decontamination, disposal) of the PCB problem; several international operators attended the meeting, each with the task of explaining their methods for treating this POP (Persistent Organic Pollutant). It has to be remembered that “POPs are chemical compounds with toxic properties that propagate in air, water or soil and, because of their poor degradability, remain in the environment for a long time”. In this approach, 12 major pollutants: aldrin, chlordane, dichloro diphenyl trichloroethane, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, mirex, toxaphene, hexachlorophene and three classes of compounds: polychlorinated dibenzodioxins (PCDD, more commonly known as dioxin), polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDF) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are related by action and persistence.

Sea Marconi took part in the “POP’s management workshop” in cooperation with TREDI, a French company offering complementary services to those provided by Sea Marconi. Our approach, in fact, aims at the preservation of PCB-contaminated assets through complete decontamination of oils and electrical equipment contained. The immediate advantage is that of avoiding waste production, as well as the disposal and incineration of PCBs, thus also reducing the costs of managing contaminated materials.
Sea Marconi works with its mobile units (DMU) that suck oil from the transformer and, step by step, remove PCBs from the transformer and the oil. This treatment, called CDP Process, is performed safely, on-site (even with working transformers), in a continuous, closed circuit, without even partial emptying of the transformer. Not only does the CDP Process guarantee a “PCB-free” transformer, it also brings the oil’s dielectric properties back to optimal conditions.

The first relations between Sea Marconi and Vietnam date back to 2003, when a technological cooperation agreement was signed on “Clean Technologies” between the European Commission and Asian area.
Twelve years later, last 11th and 12th May 2015, we were pleased to host a delegation of the Vietnamese national electricity company, EVN*. Their objective was to select the best technology available for the decontamination of oils and transformers contaminated by PCBs in the context of a broader project, UNIDO. Sea Marconi has already responded to these types of requests (e.g.: Macedonia project) and welcomes them into its production process as a core business activity.

On the first day, two companies were introduced along with a detailed presentation of Sea Marconi’s oil analysis methodology, on thediagnosis of criticalities of electrical equipment (operational and environmental) and on theonsite decontamination of transformers with PCBs. On the second day, the delegation was accompanied during a visit to the IREN power station in north Turin, and when it returned to Sea Marconi, was able to go into more detail on our laboratory analysis and the department for oil treatment systems, designed and produced in-house.

As experts in this sector, the Vietnamese guests appreciated the Sea Marconi approach focused on the protection of assets and the environmentand the possibility to develop integrated treatments, capable of “sanitising” multiple criticalities in the oil, both chemical and physical, such as water, gas, PCBs and DBDS, in a single treatment on the transformer.

The encounter was concluded with an invitation to Sea Marconi to learn more about the theme of fighting PCBs in Hanoi in July 2015.

We are particularly proud to be able to recount another positive update in the “PCBs free Program for Japan” project: the arrival of the first order for the development of a system (DMU) for the dehalogenation of oils and transformers contaminated by PCBs.
To completely understand the extraordinary nature of this news, we need to take a look at the previous “episodes” (see link at bottom of page).
Very briefly. Sea Marconi welcomed the challenge posed by the public and private Japanese sector: first of all, the laboratory detection of infinitesimal contaminations of PCBs in oil (never before detected), subsequently pushing Sea Marconi technology to the max, with the objective of decontaminating oil up to a rate of PCB < 0.5 mg/kg. Today we are proud to say that we have reached both objectives. Our laboratory has been confirmed as an extraordinary international point of reference, and the PCB decontamination technology by Sea Marconi, CDP Process + DMU, has been officially validated by Japanese authorities.

To satisfy the demands of this client, Sea Marconi performed an enormous job, redesigning itsdecontamination units (DMU), until finally defining an entirely new technological concept.
Basically this means lower weight and smaller dimensions, optimised fluid schemes, improved performance, optimised use of materials, which translates into improved performance, reduced impact of logistics, faster treatments and therefore an undeniable advantage for the end user. The development of the first system for Japan is without a doubt an extraordinary milestone, but we know it is just the beginning of a difficult path, which will nonetheless provide us with enormous satisfaction.

For this case, Sea Marconi has done a detailed study using multidetection diagnostic tools from which emerged the following critical factors:

1. PCBs above the threshold due to cross contamination caused by previous treatment performed by unskilled operator in a sensitive environment (water for cultivation)
2. Corrosion C2 (NON DBDS & Corrosive sulfur) with DBDS equivalent = 70 mg/Kg and CCD test result as corrosive without DBDS
3. corrosion C4 (NON sulfur corrosion & metal dissolution), due to presence of copper in organ metallic form
4. dielectric properties of oil non standard

there are no electrical faults, there are thermal defects but only a normal aging of the insulation solid

Sea Marconi proposed and performed and integrated treatment based on selective depolarization (Chedcos) and dehalogenation of PCB in oil (CDP Process). The treatment was performed on-site and on-load (transformer in service and under load) with a total duration of 22 days, of which 16 for the treatment part.

The solution Sea Marconi won and convinced primarily for the modularity of the treatment unit (DMU), with reduced weight and size and therefore extremely easy to handle in an area with extreme logistical constraints.
Not only, the service Sea Marconi was able to heal, with just one treatment, the problems of corrosivity and the problems of PCB contamination, both the poor dielectric oil.

The brilliant results achieved are the result of a mix of excellence:

• Innovation and technical treatment plants and transformer oil,
• the use of specific reagents patented,
• the competence of technicians Sea Marconi,
• certification of the analytical test results

This case brings together a number of peculiarities that make it unique worldwide. It has required a major effort to research, development and innovation. This has generated a series of advanced methodologies focused to multidetection; moreover this case has allowed us to study new treatment methodologies and instrumental configurations for monitoring entirely new.

Since this case is expected to publish some results in trade magazines from IEEE and Analitcal chemistry.

For Sea Marconi 2013 ended with very interesting outlooks; one of these involves the opportunity offered by Mexico, engaged in the project for the destruction of PCBs: Environmentally Sound Management and Destruction of PCBs in Mexico.
The project, started in 2009, involves the joint effort by the Ministry of Environment and natural resources (SEMARNAT), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UNDP (United Nations Development Program) financed by GEF.

In order to review the situation on the progress of the project, on 26^th and 27^th November 2013 a technical seminar took place in Mexico City specifically targeted toward the following topics:

• Results of the project “Manejo y Destrucción Ambientalmente Adecuados de Bifenilos Policlorados en México” and social impact.
• Modifications to the official Mexican normative NOM-133-ECOL-2000, Protección Ambiental-Bifenilos Policlorados (BPCs)- Management specifications.
• Progress in the obligations with the Stockholm Convention relative to the destruction of PCBs and collaboration with UNDP.

Sea Marconi participated with an intervention titled “Gestión del ciclo de vida de aceites y transformadores contaminados por PCB (y DBDS): PCBs Free Program; DBDS & Corrosion Free Program” indeed during the timeframe dedicated to the solutions for the destruction of PCBs.

Sea Marconi is ready to operate in Mexico also thanks to the recent cooperation agreement with a prestigious local partner System of Energy sa. The dehalogenation of the oils of transformers with PCBs is going to be performed using the method CDP Process^® by Sea Marconi, involving:

– the use of special patented reagents,
– internally developed treatment plants (DMU – Decontamination Mobile Unit),
– a safe and sustainable methodology providing the complete decontamination of the oil and the transformer (or other similar electrical equipment) filled with it.

Nameplate data of transformer:

Trasformatore: grid transformer
Manufact: xxx
Year: 1970
Power [MVA]: 70
Voltage [KV]: 225
Oil mass [Kg]: 38.000

Dealogenazione (CDP Process®) treatment in order to remove the PCBs, performed on-load (this means that the transformer is in service and under load during the treatment)