Arsine is a highly flammable colourless gas with a characteristic garlic odour. The gas is also known as arsenic hydride, arsenic trihydride, hydrogen arsenide and arsenous hydride. Within the major anthropogenic sources of arsine, the metallurgical industry, manufacturing of semiconductors as a doping agent, and battery production as an alloy with lead, constitute the main activities directly involved in arsine emissions in the environment.
Arsine is a very toxic gas that may produce harmful effects to human health depending on the concentration and exposure time, possibly causing haemolytic anaemia, kidney failure, central and peripheral nervous systems alterations and even death.
Developmental research in oil processing has rendered new and specialized synthetic routes to produce light olefins used in the demanding polymer industry. The efficiency of these new refining processes relies on catalysts to convert heavier hydrocarbon feedstocks into polymers.
Besides other contaminants such as hydrogen sulfide and sulfur-containing compounds, light hydrocarbon feedstocks typically have a low content of arsenic hydride or arsine. Even though the arsine concentration is present in only several hundred parts per million, small amounts of this gas can reduce the olefin polymerization catalyst, decreasing its catalytic effect. As such, removal of arsine has become a necessity, especially when olefins are required for plastics production, including polymers of ethylene and propylene.
