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.

Champion Technologies, a Permian Mud Service, Inc. 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, surfactants, scale control agents and emulsion breakers (demulsifiers).

Emulsion breakers are liquid polymers used in the “dewatering” of crude oil.  Champion Technologies produces a very wide range of emulsion breakers and will develop custom products for specific applications.  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 320°F (160°C) 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.  “Not only that, the Hydramotion viscometer was very competitive pricewise against other machines.”

Hydramotion supplied an intrinsically safe high-temperature in-line viscometer tailored specifically to 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 was immediately able to get the narrow target viscosity it wanted.

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.  “We can see far more in the reaction than we expected,” commented Jason Laws.  “The XL7 viscometer has helped us determine reaction issues that needed to be overcome.  It exceeded engineers’ expectations when regarding in-line viscosity.”