Power plants, paper and steel mills and other industries with rotating equipment often use recirculated water for the cooling of lubricating, hydraulic, turbine and transformer oil. If an oil cooler leaks, the loss of oil can cause significant damage to the pumps, compressors and motors. High oil & grease water discharge test results can be caused by oil contamination. In some cases, air quality issues can also occur. A UV fluorescence oil in water monitor from Turner Designs Hydrocarbon Instruments can...
Oil companies might discharge produced water from their facilities to a local sea or inject it into a production or disposal formation, depending on local requirements. The discharged water quality at these facilities must be monitored for oil concentration to control process upsets and environmental issues. When oil field operators want to monitor the performance of their water treatment system, they have the choice to use the regulatory method or a field method. The field methods are generally faster and...
The Situation: Plankton biomass in sea water can be variable by season, weather and other uncontrollable conditions. Industrial plants with sea water intake can be affected by high plankton concentrations. Reverse osmosis desalination systems can have high differential pressure, and when treated with chlorine, can have high disinfection byproducts in the membrane permeate. Chlorophyll A is the primary pigment in algae. Its measurement in sea water is an effective method of tracking total plankton concentration....
The Situation: Refineries use a significant amount of steam in the process of distilling gasoline, diesel and other hydrocarbon products. The refinery design will collect and return as much steam as possible to save on energy, water consumption and sewering costs. For some refineries 50% of the steam can be recovered. Because the return steam can be contaminated by hydrocarbon leaks in the heat exchangers, refineries often will install a monitoring system to alert operators when a hydrocarbon...
The Situation: Hydrocarbons in municipal water supplies, including fresh water and desalination systems, are commonly limited to less than 1 part per million. Surface water from rivers, lakes, or the sea with marine traffic, nearby pipelines, or regular flooding can be contaminated by hydrocarbons. Freshwater treatment systems can be damaged by hydrocarbons or allow them to pass through undetected. Desalination systems using reverse osmosis (RO) membranes can be irreversibly damaged by the...
The Situation: A municipal power plant in the southern United States operates more than 10 stationary power plant engines capable of producing 52 megawatts of electric power. The plant is part of a larger statewide power grid system. Within the grid, the municipality brokers the purchase or sale of power hourly, based on the needs of municipality and the market rate for power on the grid system. The power plant engines are fired-up on short notice to meet the needs of the dispatcher. The engines produce power...
The Situation: A wastewater treatment company operated an oil/water separation facility on a multi-acre industrial site in Northern California. Its purpose was to recycle oil products for profit while at the same time providing a wastewater treatment service for industries based in Northern California. The oily water mixes processed by the company were obtained from tanker bilges, contaminated rainwater runoff, truck spills, oil spills into waterways, crankcase drain oils, hydraulic oils and industrial lubricant...
The Situation: A plant located in the eastern United States manufactures phenolic resin for applications in plastics molding. This plant uses well water for cooling its reaction process and then discharges the water into a local creek. A leak in the reactor and associated cooling equipment would cause phenol and phenolic compounds to contaminate the cooling water. Such a leak could result in a discharge violation. The local regulators frequently inspected the plant’s discharge to ensure compliance with...
The Situation: A major pipeline company has large storage tank farms throughout the Western States. The pipeline company transports, stores, blends additives, and distributes gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel to retail service stations and airports. Due to the quantity and movement of fuel at these facilities, there is always the potential for fuel spills. These facilities prevent out of compliance discharge by capturing all stormwater in storm drains, which is then sent to treatment systems prior to discharge....
The Situation: Various processes onboard ships, such as machinery wash-down, maintenance, and leakage, generate oily wastewater. This contaminated water flow collects in the bilge of the ship. Marine diesel, lubricating oils, grease, as well as other contaminants may be present in bilge water. The bilge water is discharged overboard, with oil and grease concentrations in the discharged water limited by national and international regulations.
Optical instruments called fluorometers can very easily detect and measure dissolved petroleum hydrocarbons in water, and at very low concentrations. As shown in the study below, TD-4100 series monitors are able to measure xylene continuously over four consecutive weeks with a direct correlation coefficient of 0.9967 compared to GC grab sample analysis.
The Problem:To protect the river environment, the sumps at some advanced locations have oil in water separation systems and oil in water monitors. The installation of a TD-4100 series monitor in these applications is very simple. All that is needed is a properly plumbed sample stream and a way to drain the water back to the sump. A dry air supply is also needed to prevent fogging within the non-contact falling stream flow cell.
The Solution: Numerous technologies and products were evaluated for this application. A monitor with no moving parts, no significant effect from turbidity, and the ability to detect the lube oil at less than 1 ppm was determined to be the best solution. Fast, reliable, and accurate detection of lubricating oil in the water was needed.
The Situation:Power plants and paper mills use service water loops and mill water loops respectively for the cooling of lubricating, hydraulic, turbine and transformer oil. These cooling systems feature large, recirculating volumes of water which are treated with biocides, dispersants, and corrosion inhibitors. By comparison, refineries often use oncethrough cooling water systems. The cooling water is taken from lakes, rivers, or the ocean and circulated once through...
The Situation: California is currently facing one of the most severe droughts in recorded history. In order to mitigate the drought conditions, various water conservation measures have already been implemented, and others are being considered. One method under consideration is using the advanced treatment of produced water to make it available for irrigation. A major challenge to the success of this method is economically treating the produced water to achieve the quality mandated by California’s...
Ideally, a continuous online monitor would be used for collecting data to determine upset frequencies, duration and normal conditions. Many of the SWD facilities and demonstration plants do not have a budget that allows for continuous monitoring. However, high frequency sample analysis can be performed on site, using a portable analyzer. Easy to use, low cost field analyzers, such as the TD-500D, are essential for optimizing the effectiveness of treatment systems during pilot studies and meeting a budget that...
The economic advantage of continuous discharge could only be achieved at this location by meeting strict discharge limits for the level of hydrocarbons present in the discharged water. Local ordinances required continuous monitoring for continuous discharge of the company’s treated wastewater.
A plant located in the eastern United States manufactures phenolic resin for applications in plastics molding. This plant uses well water for cooling its reaction process and then discharges the water into a local creek.
The TD-4100 utilizes a non-fouling, non-contact flow cell which requires little to no maintenance, and uses fluorescence technology to accurately detect oil in water from low ppb to high ppm. For this application, the TD-4100 monitors oil in water at 1 to 5 ppm and signals an operator with an alarm when the concentration exceeds the high alarm relay set-point.