The oil industry operates installations and processes with important quantities of flammable substances within a wide range of pressures and temperatures. A particular hazard for this type of installations is an accidental release of a large quantity of flammable material resulting in a devastating vapor cloud explosion.

Extensive research was conducted to assess the efficiency of chemicals for inhibition of flames. Especially alkali metal compounds (especially carbonates and bicarbonates of sodium and potassium) have shown to be one of the more efficient flame inhibitor species.

In this paper, the principles of flame inhibition by alkali metal compounds are briefly explained. Based on these principles, a practical implementation of an industrial system for chemical inhibition of vapor cloud explosions is discussed. This implementation is based on the use of dry powders of carbonates and bicarbonates of sodium and potassium as flame inhibitor species.

The efficiency of the final design of the inhibition system was tested and confirmed on a very large scale in Vapor Cloud Explosion tests in California (US) in September 2016. Several projects in TOTAL were identified in which the VCE inhibition technology is implemented (new cracker units in Daesan (South-Korea) and in Port Arthur (United States)).

石油工业在很宽的压力和温度范围内运行带有大量易燃物质的设备和过程。此类设备的特殊危害是大量可燃材料的意外释放，导致毁灭性的蒸气云爆炸。

进行了广泛的研究，以评估化学物质抑制火焰的效率。尤其是碱金属化合物（尤其是钠和钾的碳酸盐和碳酸氢盐）已被证明是更有效的阻燃剂之一。

本文简要介绍了碱金属化合物抑制火焰的原理。基于这些原理，讨论了化学抑制蒸气云爆炸的工业系统的实际实现。该实施方案基于使用钠和钾的碳酸盐和碳酸氢盐的干粉作为阻燃剂。

2016年9月，在美国加利福尼亚州进行的蒸气云爆炸测试中，对抑制系统最终设计的效率进行了大规模测试和确认。在TOTAL的几个项目中，已实施了VCE抑制技术（新的裂解装置）大山（韩国）和亚瑟港（美国）的部队。