Veolia Water Technologies & Solutions

Antifoulant Chemical Treatment

Treat and minimize fouling throughout your refinery process with Veolia's antifoulant chemicals

Process equipment fouling in refineries is an ongoing, tenacious, and extremely costly problem. Severe economic and operational penalties related to fouling include inefficient heat transfer, corrosion, reduced reliability and processing flexibility, excessive maintenance requirements, throughput limitations, equipment damage, and significant safety and environmental concerns.

For more than 30 years, Veolia has developed fouling reduction programs by analyzing system operating performance and mechanical configuration, root cause analysis, and antifoulant product testing on blended crude oil samples provided by the refiner.

Product Highlight

Thermoflo* high-temperature antifoulant chemical treatment

Thermoflo is a multi-component, oil-soluble antifoulant that combines a high-temperature dispersant and a coke inhibitor. This formulation effectively minimizes organic and inorganic material deposition on heat transfer surfaces, such as coke, sludge, corrosion productions, polymers, and catalyst fines.

Veolia’s antifoulant chemical treatment consists of dispersants (high and low temperature stable, organic and inorganic fouling), polymerization inhibitors (free-radical, condensation), metal coordinators/deactivators and various corrosion inhibitors that exhibit dispersant properties.

  • Dispersants – designed to limit the particle size of solids in the system.
  • Corrosion Inhibitors – designed to minimize the contact between the metal surface and the corrosive fluid to minimize the formation and deposition of corrosion products in the system. 
  • Polymerization Inhibitors – "free radical" polymerization inhibitors are designed to react immediately with any radical formed in the system to form a new "stable" molecule which will no longer contribute to the propagation reactions. "non-free radical" polymerization inhibitors reduce the condensation polymerization reactions of carboxylic acids and some of the nitrogen compounds. 
  • Metal Coordinators – modify the metal ions by complexing, this reducing the catalytic activity of the metal, so that inhibition of polymerization reactions is minimized. 

Features & Benefits

Benefits of antifoulant chemical treatment

For more than 30 years, Veolia has developed antifoulant chemicals. The benefits of Veolia’s Thermoflo antifoulant chemical solutions include:

  • Maximized throughput and increased production
  • Improved product quality
  • Improved overall equipment reliability
  • Reduced equipment cleaning and replacement costs
  • Lowered overall energy costs
  • Lowered waste disposal costs
  • Improved worker safety and environmental concerns

Case Studies

FAQs

What are the effects of fouling?

Fouling deposits can reduce heat transfer rates, cause flow restrictions, increase the pressure drop across process equipment and cause unplanned shutdowns.  

What are antifoulants?

Antifoulants are chemical additives that are comprised of one or more functional chemicals in an aromatic solvent. Antifoulants typically contain a dispersant portion of the formulations.

What are dispersants?

Dispersants for hydrocarbon process applications are organic molecules that contain a surface-active functional group on a polymeric, hydrocarbon soluble backbone. They function by attaching themselves to particles in the oil being treated and suspending these particles in the bulk phase.