Bespoke viscometer provides insight into process

An Hydramotion viscometer has not only "exceeded expectations" of in-line viscosity measurement but also provided valuable insight into a polymer production process for Champion Technologies

An intrinsically safe viscometer from Hydramotion has not only "exceeded expectations" of in-line viscosity measurement but also provided valuable insight into a polymer production process for Champion Technologies of Houston, Texas USA.

Champion Technologies, a Permian Mud Service company, is the largest privately-owned oilfield chemical company in the US, with a significant presence in the major oilfields of the world and sales and administrative offices in over 30 countries.

It supplies the global oil and gas industry with a complete line of proprietary specialty chemicals, including foamers, hydrate inhibitors, scale control agents and emulsion breakers (demulsifiers), liquid polymers that are used in the "dewatering" of crude oil.

Viscosity is important for quality control during emulsion breaker production, because the product cannot be applied in the field if it is too viscous.

The production process involves an oxyalkylation polymerisation reaction at 320F (160C) in 3000-gallon (11,000-litre) tanks.

Engineers can follow the progress of the reaction by monitoring the viscosity of the mix, which builds from less than 1cP to over 500cP as the reaction proceeds.

Needing a robust and reliable in-line viscometer suitable for use in a Class 1 Div 1 Group D hazardous area, Champion Technologies came to Hydramotion.

"We chose Hydramotion because they could offer us an intrinsically safe instrument that's easy to use and low maintenance," said Jason Laws, Senior Process Engineer at Champion Technologies.

Mr Laws added: "Another important point was that the Hydramotion viscometer was very competitive pricewise against other machines." Hydramotion supplied an intrinsically safe XL7 high-temperature in-line viscometer tailored specifically to the Champion Technologies requirements.

As the reaction mixture is highly corrosive (pH <3), the monolithic sensor was constructed from Hastelloy C.

Using the instrument in the monomer and polymer stages, Champion Technologies were immediately able to get the narrow target viscosity it wanted: "It exceeded the engineer's expectations in terms of in-line viscosity".

In addition, obtaining continuous viscosity data at line temperature gave the engineers an insight into the process that had not been possible with earlier, off-line measurements.

"The XL7 viscometer has helped us determine reaction issues that needed to be overcome.

We can see far more in the reaction than we expected," said Jason Laws.

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