Monsanto Chemical Company

Monsanto Chemical Company's Pensacola facility is the world's largest unified production facility of nylon for carpets and industrial tires. The 2100 direct employees plus 1000 contractor employees produce nylon chemicals and fibers at a single 2200 acre facility.

During the production of nylon and maleic anhydride, a non nylon chemical used in the fiberglass resin and food industries, air emissions consisting of cyclohexane, acetaldehyde, ammonia, maleic anhydride, Freon 113 and other miscellaneous chemicals are released. According to the EPA 1990 Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) list, the Monsanto Pensacola facility was one of the largest air toxics emitters in Florida.

Monsanto renewed the Company's commitment to environmentally safe industrial operations by dedicating itself to a seven point pledge. The Monsanto Pledge is a corporate, worldwide declaration to make significant improvements in the reduction of ,all toxic and hazardous releases with an ultimate goal of zero effects. The Pledge guides the Company in meaningful environmental employee safety and health, and community relations solutions.

The Monsanto waste reduction goal of 90 % reduction in SARA air toxic emissions and significant reductions in deep well injections by the end of 1992 is on schedule at the Pensacola facility.

Cyclohexane and ammonia are used to produce nylon. Cyclohexane emissions amounted to 869,000 pounds per year during 1987. Four projects to reduce these emissions to 36,000 pounds per year for 1992, a 96% reduction, have been completed or are in progress. These projects are:

  1. Change operational procedures to reduce tank venting losses by using material from the floating roof storage tanks and keep the fixed roof storage tank full at all times. The ventage losses from the tank vapor space is reduced from 45,000 pounds per year to 7000 pounds per year. The change costs zero and produced a savings of $8000 per year.
  2. Fugitive losses were actually documented instead of assumed by allowable accounting standards. The 1987 TRI list included .299,000 pounds per year released. Actual measurements documented losses from flanges, valves, etc. at 8000 pounds per year. This was not an actual decrease but the project completion reduced the TRI value.'
  3. Cyclohexane ventage losses from the many process tanks were 306,000 pounds per year in 1987. By spending $430,000 to manifold the ventage from these tanks and returning the chemical back to the process, the losses were reduced to 7000 pounds per year at a cost savings of $40,000 per year.
  4. The packing material in a high pressure vent scrubber was replaced which improved the efficiency of the scrubber and allowed the material to be returned to the process. This project reduced emission from 219,000 pounds per year to 4000 pounds per year. The cost was $180,000 but saved $170,000 per year, nearly a one-year payback time period.

One project to improve plant safety actually caused a reduction in ammonia releases. By installing a multi-million dollar cryogenic ammonia storage tank the losses decreased from 43,000 pounds per year to 1000 pounds per year.

Substituting non toxic material for Freon 113 and methyl chloroform during degreasing and cleaning operations accounted for the reduction of 32,000 pounds per year to zero emission.

Process procedures also were changed to reduce the amount of maleic anhydride chemical emissions from 39 million to 18 million pounds per year. Process procedures also were changed to reduce emissions of biphenyl, a heat transfer fluid, from 19,000 to 13,000 pounds per year.

The amount of ammonia nitrate injected down deep wells was reduced from 23 million pounds per year to 5 million pounds. Ammonia nitrate is produced by using ammonia to neutralize nitric acid resulting from the nylon chemical production. Instead of neutralizing all the nitric acid coming from various sources with various concentrations of nitric acid and water, the pH was adjusted upstream by improved equalization of acid and alkaline waste streams at the individual process discharges. This process change reduced the amount of ammonia used and reduced the amount of ammonia nitrate produced for disposal.

The various projects to reduce wastes and prevent pollution at Monsanto/Pensacola have reduced toxic air emissions from 1.02 million pounds per year (1987) to 88,000 Pounds per year (expected 1992) a 91 % reduction at a cost of $1.4 million 'and produced a savings of $640,000 per year. The payback period for these extensive projects is slightly greater than two years.

The Monsanto Pledge ensures that the company will continue to be one of the truly great industrial enterprises. The company's environmental performance will enhance its financial performance and will enable the company to develop new products, new markets and sell the current products at very competitive prices. Pollution Prevention Pays!

Source: FDEP Success Story


[ December 1992 ]