The future biofuel industry:
Minimax provides protection for AGRANA plant in Austria
EU fuel regulations stipulate the addition of bioethanol to petrol, serving to propel the biofuel sector to previously unknown heights. In Austria, petrol has consisted of 4.4 per cent bioethanol since October 2007, as planned by the regulatory bodies.
The AGRANA Group reacted with the construction of a new bio-ethanol plant in Pischelsdorf near Vienna. The 125-million-euro project is due to begin operation in early 2008, and has a production capacity of up to 240,000 cubic metres of grain-based bioethanol every year in order to prepare the company in the face of growing bio fuel demands.
The AGRANA plant is also extremely well prepared in terms of fire protection, with customised Minimax fire protection systems for the various process flows throughout the premises. Fire suppression devices, detector systems and extinguishers offer multifaceted, comprehensive protection.
“Cooling” is a particularly important concept within this project, in order to prevent the risk of fire through overheating. Accordingly, twelve 26-metre-high elevators, six collection containers and three supply tanks with jacket cooling are planned. The 28-metre-tall mill house is protected by a sprinkler system, whilst the train and goods vehicle loading area is equipped with a foam extinguishing system. In addition to these fixed fire protection measures, 160 extinguishers are available on the site for mobile use in the event of a fire.
The core of the fire protection system consists of the pump room with three diesel pumps and a hydrate pump, in addition to a connected water supply basin with a useable volume of 1,942 cubic metres. This pump centre will also supply the ring-laid DN300 underground pipework, the total length of which spans over 2,000 metres. A total of five sub-distributions with 49 spray flow stations and one wet station supply each extinguishing area.
The comprehensive fire protection system used at the AGRANA plant is a special solution offered by the Austrian Minimax subsidiary, Minimax-Österreichische Feuerschutz Ges. m. b. H. A trial run of the fire extinguishing devices at the end of the construction phase was a complete success.