Factors affecting the silver corrosion performance of jet fuel from the Merox process
- Sasol Oil R&D (South Africa)
- CSIR, Pretoria (South Africa)
- National Petroleum Refineries of South Africa, Sasolburg (South Africa)
The Natref refinery at Sasolburg, South Africa, which is 63,6% owned by Sasol and 36,5% by Total, is producing Jet A-1 fuel at a rate of 80 m{sup 3}/h by means of a UOP Merox process. A substantial part of the crude oil slate is made up from crudes which have been stored for considerable times in underground mines. Since the 1970`s, Natref has experienced sporadic non-conformance of its treated jet fuel to the silver corrosion (IP 227) test. Various causes and explanations for the sporadic silver corrosion occurrence have been put forward but a direct causal link has remained obscure. The paper addresses these possible causes for silver corrosion and some of the process changes which have been made to alleviate the problem. Emphasis is placed on the most recent approaches which were taken to identify the origin of the sporadic silver corrosion. An inventory of all the potential causes was made, such a bacterial action, elemental sulphur formation in storage, etc. and experiments designed to test the validity of these causes, are discussed. A statistical evaluation which was done of the historical process data over a 2 year period, failed to link the use of mine crudes directly to Ag-corrosion occurrence. However, a correlation between elemental sulphur and H{sub 2}S levels in the feed to the Merox reactor and Ag-corrosion was observed. Finally, the outcome of the experiments are discussed, as well as the conclusions which were reached from the observed results.
- Research Organization:
- USDOE Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy, Washington, DC (United States). Office of Technical Management
- OSTI ID:
- 45050
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-941022-Vol.1; ON: DE95008873; TRN: 95:003336-0006
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 5. international conference on stability and handling of liquid fuels, Rotterdam (Netherlands), 3-7 Oct 1994; Other Information: PBD: 1995; Related Information: Is Part Of Proceedings of the 5th international conference on stability and handling of liquid fuels. Volume 1; Giles, H.N. [ed.]; PB: 431 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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