How Direct Mercury Analysers can Help the Petrochemical Industry with Mercury Analysis

The accumulation of mercury throughout the petrochemical refinery process continues to cause severe operational difficulties for refineries.

Mercury concentrations vary greatly in crude oil and condensate samples. Sample preparation procedures are labour intensive and time consuming.

Analysing samples for mercury therefore remains a significant drain on resources and time.

The DMA-1 and DMA-80 direct mercury analysers from Milestone, distributed in the UK by Analytix, are helping laboratories in the petrochemical industry to optimise their mercury analysis processes.

The DMA-1 is a manual single analysis system that is designed for laboratories with low sample throughput. The DMA-80 is an automatic sample analyser with capacity for 40 samples, designed for larger workloads.

Neither system requires any sample preparation prior to analysis thus eliminating the risk of mercury loss and cross contamination. This also means ease of use, low running costs, and no need for handling and disposal of hazardous chemicals. In addition both systems have the advantage of ‘running on air’ that removes the requirement for in-house or bottled gases.

Both analysers allow rapid direct mercury analysis of a wide range of sample types that are typically tested in the petrochemical industry, such as fuels, oils and polymers, and inorganic samples such as catalysts. They can analyse solid, liquid, and gaseous samples in approximately five minutes per sample, with excellent sensitivity. There is also no need to calibrate the instrument every day, the calibration curve can be stable for up to several months which greatly simplifies routine analyses.

The DMA-1 and DMA-80 have been used to develop the US EPA method 7473. They are also compliant with ASTM D-6722-01 and ASTM D-7623-10.

Both analysers optimise the analytical workflow from start to finish, improving analytical data quality whilst reducing the time taken to achieve results. Analytix additionally offers a highly sensitive Fluorescence Mercury Analyser – FMA-80 – for mercury analysis in liquids.