Foaming of washing oil in steam stripper

[SlAze216]

Hi,
I'm a new hire, that works in the gas refining facility of a manufacturing plant. We scrub gas of organics using a type of washing oil and then strip the wash oil with steam.

Recently we have started noticing the wash oil foaming quite a bit and are unsure what could be the cause. The only time the wash oil comes in contact with water is during steam stripping. I have retrieved samples of the oil running through the system and a batch of fresh oil for comparison.

I want to test for water content and TSS in them but are there other parameters or tests that should be considered as well?

Thank you.If you need more info please ask.

 

[jari001]

If it is only a recent phenomenon, maybe the washing oil is different from before (different vendor, different formulation...)? The foaming makes me think emulsification so maybe the steam velocity needs to be re-tuned.

Could you provide a drawing/sketch of the stripping process?

 

[EmmanuelTop]

How do you know that foaming is in question here? What are the symptoms?

Dejan IVANOVIC
Process Engineer, MSChE

 

[GenB]

Steam not dry enough

 

[georgeverghese]

Speak to your corrosion engineers working on the gas facilities further upstream - they may have either found some new CI to try out, or they may have gone overboard with the injection rates for the existing CI cocktail to counter some corrosion concerns ??