On Thursday 27th June 2024, Central Scotland Branch held its maiden event, this being an in-person presentation at: INEOS Grangemouth.
This opening event was well supported with over 20 attendees and was kindly sponsored by Carboline, who provided all the catering for the evening, and INEOS, who generously loaned their training centre for the event.
Lisa Anne Sweeney of Veolia Water Technologies and Solutions gave an excellent talk entitled “Cooling Water Treatment and its impact on Asset Integrity Management”.
The key theme of the presentation was understanding which corrosion mechanisms can be found in cooling water systems and what treatments can be applied to mitigate them. There was also an opportunity to explore a real-life example of a corrosion issue discovered within INEOS KG Cooling System and the approach taken to help resolve and mitigate this.
The key factors influencing corrosion and erosion were reviewed including:
The enormous costs of corrosion and available mitigations were also reviewed. A heat exchanger case study was then examined from INEOS Plant.
It was determined that the primary cause of the heat exchanger damage in this case was microbiological corrosion caused by metabolic activity of microorganisms within the process:
- SRB
- Iron and manganese bacteria
- Slime formers – bacteria/fungi/algae
These types of microbiological life can excrete acids, which can lower the pH of the water, where corrosion is occurring and accelerate it. Historically, there had not been major issues prior to the recent plant outage and this discovery in 2019.
Subsequent Investigations, Monitoring and Mitigations
All the following were performed:
- Deposit analysis performed.
- Review of cooling water analysis.
- Review of the chemical treatment plan.
- Re-started the bio-dispersant chemical on a trial basis.
- Measured microbiological activity by using ATP method and off-site analysis.
This situation has now been rectified, but it has highlighted the enormous disruption that can be caused by MIC corrosion and the difficulties of removing contamination once initiated.
The Central Scotland Branch has formed an interim committee for the 2024–2025 session under the distinguished chair of Philip Enegela. To make a presentation or to join the mailing list, please contact: philip.enegela@ineos.com
For the 2024-2025 Technical Programme, the normal event location will be: HQ Training Centre, INEOS Olefins and Polymers, PO Box 21, 1 Inchyra Road, Grangemouth FK3 9XB
Photo 1: Attendees for the Launch Event of Central Scotland Branch.
Photo 2: Lisa Anne Sweeney of Veolia Water Technologies.
Photo 3: Veolia Advanced Water Treatment Solutions.
Photo 4: Veolia Heat Exchanger Case Study.
Photo 5: Heat Exchanger Fouling
Heat Exchanger Findings
