Stop Tramp Amine Corrosion at the Refinery Gate.
Detect Scavenger Carryover in Crude & Desalter Water in <5 Minutes.
Unneutralized triazine scavengers in crude feedstocks thermally degrade into free amines (MEA, MMA), forming aggressive amine hydrochloride salts that destroy crude unit overhead condensers. OndaVia’s Quantitative Raman Spectroscopy (QRS) quantifies tramp amines at ppm levels on-site—before corrosive crude enters your distillation columns.
The Corrosion Mechanism: From Wellhead Scavenger to Condenser Leak
How upstream H2S scavenger over-treatment travels hundreds of miles down pipeline networks to attack refinery overhead systems.
🔥 The Overhead Corrosion Hazard
- Under-Deposit Attack: Amine hydrochloride salts are hygroscopic. They absorb trace moisture, generating concentrated acid pockets (pH < 1) that aggressively pit carbon steel and titanium condenser tubes.
- Dry Salt Point Deposition: Unlike filming neutralizing amines, tramp MEA·HCl precipitates before wash water can dissolve it, causing heavy salting in exchanger bundles.
- Distillation Tower Salt Plugs: Secondary tramp amines cause tray fouling and differential pressure spikes in top fractionator fractionation trays.
📉 The Financial & Operational Costs
- $1M+ Unscheduled Turnarounds: An overhead tube rupture forces an emergency crude unit shutdown, costing $500,000 to $2,500,000+ in lost margin and repair.
- Blind Chemical Treating: Refineries over-inject expensive filming inhibitors and neutralizers trying to combat localized pitting they cannot accurately measure.
- Opportunity Crude Losses: Plants reject deeply discounted crude blends out of fear, or accept them blindly and suffer catastrophic exchanger corrosion.
The OndaVia Solution: Definitive Identification in < 5 Minutes
OndaVia Quantitative Raman Spectroscopy (QRS) isolates the distinct vibrational fingerprint of each amine species. In under 5 minutes, you can screen incoming crude shipments, monitor desalter wash water partitioning, and measure overhead accumulator water—quantifying exact ppm concentrations of MEA-triazine, MMA-triazine, free MEA, and neutralizer amines.
Why Traditional Tramp Amine Testing Methods Fail
How OndaVia QRS compares directly to manual potentiometric titrations and contract lab chromatography.
| Testing Dimension | Potentiometric Wet Titrations | Contract Testing Lab (IC / GC-MS) | OndaVia Raman (QRS) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Turnaround Time | 30–45 minutes per test | 5 to 10 business days | Under 5 minutes on-site |
| Species Specificity | ✕ Blind (measures total base number; cannot separate tramp MEA from added neutralizers) | ✓ Speciated identification | ✓ Speciated ppm quantification (MEA, MMA, Triazines, Neutralizers) |
| Gate-Check Feasibility | ✕ Impractical for fast custody transfer decisions | ✕ Completely useless (crude is already refined before data arrives) | ✓ Immediate (accept or treat crude before feeding CDU) |
| Sample Preparation | Complex solvent extractions, acid titrants, hazardous waste | Demanding analytical prep & calibration | Simple 1-step extraction into sealed microfluidic cartridge |
| Cost per Test | High technician labor overhead | $150 to $400 per sample fee | Low consumable cartridge cost |
Documented Refinery Protection in the Field
Real-world operational results from operating crude distillation units and refinery technical centers.
Catching Tramp MEA in Opportunity Tight Oil Blends
The Problem: A 250,000 bpd refinery began running a discounted light tight oil (LTO) blend. Within weeks, overhead accumulator water pH swung wildly, and electrical resistance corrosion probes indicated severe localized pitting in the carbon steel overhead condenser bundles.
The OndaVia Diagnosis: Gate testing with an OPAL-103 identified 42 ppm unreacted MEA-triazine in the incoming crude delivery. In the desalter, only 60% partitioned into the brine, allowing 16 ppm of triazine to charge directly to the crude furnace where it cracked into volatile MEA.
The Outcome: The refinery established a strict 5 ppm tramp amine gate specification. Armed with 5-minute OPAL testing, they negotiated chemical treater upstream remediation, optimized desalter wash water injection, and prevented an emergency unit shutdown that would have cost over $1.4M in downtime and retubing.
Eliminating Neutralizer Over-Injection in Overhead Systems
The Problem: Because laboratory IC results took a week to arrive, corrosion engineers routinely over-injected expensive neutralizing filming amine chemistry into the CDU overhead vapor line to ensure the water boot stayed buffered above pH 5.8.
The OndaVia Diagnosis: Routine daily testing of overhead accumulator water using OndaVia QRS showed that over-injection was creating a secondary salting hazard from excess unreacted neutralizer amine salts.
The Outcome: By pairing daily OPAL-103 measurements with ionic modeling, the refinery trimmed neutralizer injection rates to match actual acid gas demand, cutting annual specialty chemical spend by 28% while improving overhead cleanliness.
Refinery Deployment Options: Lab Benchtop or In-Line PAT
Engineered for the demands of 24/7 refinery operations and process chemical service teams.
OPAL-103 Portable Analysis System
- Crude Gate Screening: Test incoming crude oil tanker trucks, rail offloading, and pipeline batches in under 5 minutes.
- Pushbutton Operation: Pre-calibrated cartridges eliminate standard prep, hazardous acid burettes, and chemist calibration curves.
- Multi-Matrix Versatility: Analyzes raw crude oil, desalter effluent wash water, and overhead accumulator sour water on the same platform.
- Speciated Ppm Output: Directly displays ppm MEA, ppm MMA, and unreacted triazine concentration.
ORCA-303 Continuous Process Analyzer
- Autonomous Slipstream Sampling: Continuous automated fluid extraction, optical analysis, and self-cleaning cycles.
- Refinery DCS / SCADA Integration: 4–20 mA and Modbus TCP/IP outputs provide real-time amine salt alarm feeds.
- Closed-Loop Trim: Automates chemical injection pump control for wash water acidification and neutralizer amine dosing.
- Class I, Div 2 / ATEX Certified: Purged explosion-proof enclosures ready for refinery process battery limits.