March 15, 2016 – Dorf Ketal introduces new reactive adjunct chemistry at AFPM Annual Meeting

At the AFPM Annual Meeting, James Noland of Dorf Ketal introduced new reactive adjunct chemistry designed to remove tramp amines in the desalter without using acids. Increasing crude flexibility without increasing operating costs, this program gives refiners a new way of safely reducing the accumulation of amines in desalter operation. 

The patent pending new adjunct chemistry works by converting the amines in the desalter to water soluble imines that are easily removed with the brine. The reduction of amine content reduces desalter pH which improves overall desalting and reduces the partitioning of the amines into the oil. The reduction of amines in the crude and overhead results in lower salt points in the overhead and reduces the risk of corrosion and fouling. 

The oil industry uses approximately 300 million pounds per year of MEA-triazine for scavenging H2S; this chemistry is the primary root cause of monoethanolamine (MEA) in the crude that can cause crude tower overhead corrosion. The extent of this contamination is difficult to measure and highly variable, frustrating efforts of refiners to deal with the crude flexibility challenges it creates. Before today, the only option for refiners to break this cycle was by using acid, an option with many safety and operational concerns.   

The new reactive adjunct chemistry adds value at very low dosages, even when tramp amines are not a concern. The new chemistry is fed to the desalter with an emulsion breaker. The dosage of the emulsion breaker can be reduced to offset the cost of the reactive adjunct.  The combination program reduces oil content in the brine, and improves desalting and dehydration efficiencies.