COVER STORY: GRANDPERSPECTIVE GMBH
For Schmitz, world-class process safety management is about knowing the risks, managing them and controlling them. To do that, means managing both the bigger picture and individual hazards. It is only when you understand the overall perspective that you can begin to develop a strategy as to how risks are managed.
As part of that plan, Schmitz, who was working for a neighbouring chemical company, OCI NV, approached Grandperspective, along with AnQore B. V. They expressed an interest in trialling our ground-based remote sensing system. In case you’ re unfamiliar with it, our scanfeld ® sensor units, use hyperspectral imaging based on Fourier-Transform infrared( FTIR) remote sensing technology. Unlike legacy sensor technologies, they can continuously identify and visualise 400 different gases at detection rates of 0.05 kg / hr or less- across a radius of one square kilometre. In a nutshell, this means that large chemical sites can cover vast areas using only a handful of sensors.
That was five years ago, but fast forward to the current day and six sensors now provide multi-compound coverage to the entire northern section of the Chemelot Industrial Park, an area spanning 1.6 square kilometres.
Process safety
But I don’ t want to focus on the merits of our technology as such. Instead, I want to use this feature to highlight how safety experts like Peter Schmitz are using ground-based remote sensing technology to strengthen barrier frameworks, develop highly effective risk mitigation strategies, and in multi-gas environments, collaborate and share safety learnings. doesn ' t stand up to scrutiny in multi-compound environments, where there could be hundreds of compounds circulating. In this multi-risk landscape, safety teams need visibility beyond pre-selected substances – they need a complete picture of all emissions in real time.
Legacy sensors lack the sensitivity needed for multi-complex environments
Secondly, in multi-chemical environments, legacy sensor systems, such as fixed-point sensors and hand-scanners, lack the low detection limits to identify and image potentially harmful compound leaks. That is because most legacy systems work on the premise that there is a leak of something, but often lack the specificity to differentiate between a harmful compound and a harmless leak or water vapour and steam. While legacy sensors will be able to identify a large leak of high pressure carbon dioxide, what if there is also a tiny escape of benzene or ethylene emanating from the same area? Fixed-point sensors may not be able to detect the small-scale but highly dangerous compound leak. In contrast, ground based remote sensing technology not only detects and visualises such compound leaks instantly, but provides the control room with actionable alerting, including the size, the length, the width and breadth of the cloud and which direction it is heading.
For Peter, ground based remote systems have enabled him and his team to develop risk mitigation frameworks, which no longer rely exclusively on safety by design, or on understanding the risk as an incident unfolds. Instead, by enabling safety teams to create a set of real-time barriers, the scanfeld ® advanced monitoring system has allowed them to operate between these two extremes and develop risk mitigation strategies that create a robust set of barriers from the point of incident to the point of escalation. This, they believe, is a proven way to stop minor incidents from escalating in multi-compound environments.
Recognising ground-based remote sensing technology as an integral part of the process safety culture has enabled Fibrant to pinpoint the exact location of even small-scale leaks. This has made it possible for safety teams to issue targeted warnings by creating a real-world picture of who is, and who is not at risk. As Peter explains, process safety teams are now able to better coordinate their evacuation mitigation measures, ensuring rapid and precise responses.
But how has ground-based remote sensing technology enabled this breakthrough? Put simply, its greatest strength is that it asks:“ What is there?”, rather than just“ Are chemicals X and chemicals Y present? This fundamental shift matters because legacy sensor systems rely on predefined detection targets. They help safety professionals answer the question,‘ Have I correctly predicted what will be there and how it will be detected?’ But that is the wrong question to ask. Indeed, this one-dimensional approach, which is adopted by legacy sensor systems,
APRIL 2025 • FUGITIVE EMISSIONS JOURNAL 7