CHEMICAL ENGINEERING - CHEMICAL BLENDING
When i was working in my previous company, doing some oil and gas business, I did mentioned that we take care of some pipelines which contain condensate and gas. The pipelines are quite long, several kilometres. We have to maintain the pipelines from corrosion damage. Therefore, we have to select some specialty chemicals such as degreaser and also corrosion inhibitor, to be injected in the pipeline.
The degreaser main purpose is to provide enough alkaline so that any debris or sludge deposited in the pipeline can be easily remove by using the bi-directional pig.
The corrosion inhibitor which is an alkyl ammine base (Quartenary pyridine alkyl ammonium), a water base concentrate will create a thin layer layer on the internal side of the pipeline to protect from any corrosion to develop. After injecting the corrosion inhibitor, a filment pig will evenly distribute the chemical onto the internal pipeline section.
The condensate pipeline is a 10" diameter pipeline whereas the gas pipeline has a diameter of 48". So, can you imagine how big is the bi-di pig and the filment pig for the gas pipeline?!!! The weight of each 48" pig is 2 tonnes. It's not an easy job to to do the pigging job for the gas pipeline.
However, the challenging task for me was to prepare and blend the chemicals to be injected inside the pipeline. It's a very tough job too. I have to blend degreaser up to 15 m3 and corrosion inhibitor up to 3 m3. It's a lot amount of chemicals to be blend using just some 2.7 m3 poly tank. I have to coordinate all the blending process, manage the transportation of water, be aware of the timing and also supervising the process of injecting the chemicals into the pipeline. But, the most important task is to ensure the chemical's quality. I have to conduct several tests before allowing the chemical to be dosed into the pipeline. I have to conduct compatibility test, foaming test, emulsion test and few other tests. If the test failed, i have to adjust the chemical blending accordingly until the quality is obtained. All of these chemical blending process takes place at site under a very hot sun!!! Imagine working under the sun wearing the nomex and tyvek coverall (i did mention about the safety coverall in my previous post). Uhhh...it's damn hot....Just imagine that i can easily drink and finish the 500ml mineral water bottle in 8 seconds!!! Yeahh...it's that hot....
Get the Weatherford specialty chemical (corrosion inhibitor) information that i used while doing this projet here
posted by alzack @ 8:02 PM,
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The Author
I’m Zaki. I used to be a project, process and chemical engineer. I'm now employed as a chemical engineering lecturer, but now I'm on my Ph.D study leave. Hope you like reading my blog. I welcome any feedback from you. TQ!
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