Using X-ray techniques, scientists at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory are developing an analysis tool that can more accurately predict how sulphur compounds in a batch of crude oil might corrode equipment– an important safety issue for the oil industry.
The results of these ongoing experiments at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory will improve industry guidelines. The goal is to characterize the types of sulphur that are most critical to identify in the oil, in order to better anticipate the potential for corrosion rates.
A team of researchers from Chevron Corporation and the University of Saskatchewan are performing a series of studies at SSRL to closely examine forms of sulphur in crude oil.
“By looking at crude oil with a combination of X-ray spectroscopy techniques, we were able to examine and describe the complex chemistry of the sulphur compounds with high specificity,” said Monica Barney, a materials research engineer at Chevron.
Difficulties in the data
Nearly a million barrels of oil are processed on a given day at Chevron’s major refineries throughout the US, and the sulphur present in the oil can react with the metals in various types of equipment and cause damage. These reactions are something engineers must consider to ensure safe and reliable processing.
But high sulphur concentrations don’t always correlate with high levels of corrosion, or the other way around, and this makes it difficult to anticipate how corrosive a particular crude oil will be.
“We can measure the concentration of sulphur, but it doesn’t tell you about the reactivity,” says Barney, who is leading the studies. “Knowing the type of sulphur in crude oil is critically important for predicting properties related to corrosion.”
The collaboration began when Barney was working on a separate corrosion study at SSRL. After collecting the data, the Chevron team was struggling with how to interpret the complexities they saw in the results.
In an online search, they came across a diagram developed by two professors at the University of Saskatchewan, Graham George and Ingrid Pickering, while they were on the staff at SSRL. They have conducted molecular biology and toxicology experiments at the SSRL synchrotron for years.
The diagram showed spectroscopy information gathered from the superimposition of data on many sulphur types, similar to what’s seen in crude oil. It showed how comparing an overall spectrum to a library of standards could identify individual types of compounds.
Using X-ray techniques, scientists at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory are developing an analysis tool that can more accurately predict how sulphur compounds in a batch of crude oil might corrode equipment– an important safety issue for the oil industry.
The results of these ongoing experiments at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory will improve industry guidelines. The goal is to characterize the types of sulphur that are most critical to identify in the oil, in order to better anticipate the potential for corrosion rates.
A team of researchers from Chevron Corporation and the University of Saskatchewan are performing a series of studies at SSRL to closely examine forms of sulphur in crude oil.
“By looking at crude oil with a combination of X-ray spectroscopy techniques, we were able to examine and describe the complex chemistry of the sulphur compounds with high specificity,” said Monica Barney, a materials research engineer at Chevron.
Difficulties in the data
Nearly a million barrels of oil are processed on a given day at Chevron’s major refineries throughout the US, and the sulphur present in the oil can react with the metals in various types of equipment and cause damage. These reactions are something engineers must consider to ensure safe and reliable processing.
But high sulphur concentrations don’t always correlate with high levels of corrosion, or the other way around, and this makes it difficult to anticipate how corrosive a particular crude oil will be.
“We can measure the concentration of sulphur, but it doesn’t tell you about the reactivity,” says Barney, who is leading the studies. “Knowing the type of sulphur in crude oil is critically important for predicting properties related to corrosion.”
The collaboration began when Barney was working on a separate corrosion study at SSRL. After collecting the data, the Chevron team was struggling with how to interpret the complexities they saw in the results.
In an online search, they came across a diagram developed by two professors at the University of Saskatchewan, Graham George and Ingrid Pickering, while they were on the staff at SSRL. They have conducted molecular biology and toxicology experiments at the SSRL synchrotron for years.
The diagram showed spectroscopy information gathered from the superimposition of data on many sulphur types, similar to what’s seen in crude oil. It showed how comparing an overall spectrum to a library of standards could identify individual types of compounds.
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