Reduce refinery corrosion by easy chlorine analysis in crude oil & distillates

Reducing downtime of the refining operation, for instance by corrosion prevention, improves your margins significantly. About one third of maintenance downtime can be linked to corrosion. Chlorine content in crude oil and process streams is responsible for an important part of the corrosion. The Total Acid Number (TAN) of oils and fuels is an important parameter in managing corrosion caused in the refinery. Chlorine and sulfur content next to the naphthenic acids, contribute to the TAN and are unwanted elements in crude oil and other petrochemical products. Next to the corrosion they cause in the oil-processing and refinement installations they are also harmful for the environment.

X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is widely used for the analysis of sulfur in oil. However, the simultaneous determination of very low chlorine concentrations poses an analytical challenge due to the proximity of both elements in the periodic table of elements. PANalytical’s Epsilon 3^XLE energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometer is perfectly able to meet this challenge. The combination of market leading hardware features and the powerful software enables the system to process high sulfur count rates and at the same time resolves possible line overlaps between chlorine and sulfur.

“The lower limit of quantification for chlorine in the presence of percentage levels of sulfur is below 2 mg/kg (ppm), which makes the Epsilon 3^XLE the perfect solution for this challenging task,” says Taco van der Maten, petro segment marketing manager. “Furthermore, the system caters for variable characteristics of crude oil composition thereby enabling a more robust and accurate determination of chlorine. The possibility to analyse all other relevant elements from Na to Am with similar outstanding accuracy and repeatability, makes it a valuable asset for a wide range of petrochemical applications”.

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