Asbestos is the common name applied to a group of silicate minerals which have a fibrous crystal habit. There are six principal asbestos minerals chrysotile, actinolite, tremolite, crocidolite (riebeckite), anthophyllite and amosite (grunerite). A different chemical composition, structure and physical properties determined the use of these minerals in industry. In the past, asbestos minerals were used in about 3,000 different commercial products . Chrysotile (white asbestos), crocidolite (blue asbestos) and amosite (brown asbestos) had the largest industrial applications and were widely used in the past.
Asbestos–cement products constituted the main assortment of products based on asbestos, and about 85 % of mined asbestos was used for production. It was a very inexpensive and popular building material. Yet it is commonly known that asbestos minerals have carcinogenic properties and that the risk of asbestos-related diseases is associated with inhalation of respirable asbestos fibres into the respiratory system.
Er-Petro has the resources and experience to comprehensively manage any asbestos removal project. Our services range from the initial inspection, elaboration of environment risk-assessment studies, operational surveys, removal, replacement with non ACM (Asbestos Containing Material) to the final disposal or complete demolition by heat-treatment.
Our Management Team will design and supervise the project to cause minimal inconvenience to the client with maximum discretion and efficiency, with always adhering to deadlines of the project. Close attention is paid to vacuum housing enclosure design, air movement directions, maintaining negative pressures, safety transit routes, decontamination and waste disposal to provide a professional and efficient service. We always pay special attention to personal safety (client personnel or own-workers). We specialise in asbestos abatement (Asbestos Clean-up, Removals and Encapsulation works). Prior to the commencement of the works, air quality is tested for references throughout and after the removal works. The air quality shall not change throughout the works outside the closed working area.
Once asbestos removal works, are complete air testing is carried out for comparison. Control tests are carried out by independent accredited laboratories. Just because asbestos is removed, it does not stop being dangerous! Er-Petro has all the technologies to deal with all forms of ACM, be it burial in disposal sites or final decomposition in incinerators.
We maintain our projects according to European (German) regulations.
Hazardous waste is waste that poses substantial or potential threats to public health or the environment.
These wastes may be found in different physical states such as gaseous, fluid, or solid state. A hazardous waste is a special type of waste because it cannot be disposed of by common means like other by-products of our everyday lives. Depending on the physical state of the waste, pre-treatment and grinding processes may be required prior to heat-treatment.
Worldwide, The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) estimated that more than 400 million tons of hazardous wastes are produced universally each year, mostly by industrialized countries. The problem of Asbestos is becoming a serious issue nowadays in North-Africa and the Middle-East, where most of the factories and plants were built in the '80s, when Asbestos Containing Materials were considered best insulation means. In the present days this industrial sector needs modernization and maintenance that is only possible when Asbestos is eliminated from the system.
With new laws, making it more difficult to dump hazardous wastes, and with regulations about hazardous waste landfills making them very expensive, heat-treatment of any Asbestos Containing Materials is promoted as an economical alternative in these regions.
In the European Union it is a common method where asbestos-containing materials are stored in special landfills. This is not the final solution to the asbestos problem because the fibrous structure of asbestos is still maintained.
Therefore, methods based on recycling must be found which will be able to destroy asbestos' dangerous fibrous structure. One of these methods is the thermal decomposition, where chemically combined water is released from the asbestos materials during heating. This leads to changes in the crystal structure and to the forma- tion of new mineral phases.