Black powder is an industry name for the abrasive, reactive particulate contamination present in all gas and hydrocarbon fluid transmission lines.
After refinement, black powder continues to build in the gas plants and refineries, storage reservoirs, and finally through to the end user.
In refineries, process plants, and storage reservoirs, if H2S is present, it will corrode all carbon steel components creating more black powder.
These particles have an affinity for themselves and throughout the rest of the pipeline process will reach measurable levels instantly causing clouds of black powder in the flow.
Presently the majority of measures employed to deal with black powder are reactive not proactive such as pigging and chemical cleaners resulting in significant down time and costs.
BPS new rare-earth magnetic technology provides proactive management practices to reduce the contamination levels, mitigating the overall negative impact of black powder on pipeline operational integrity.
The solution to this problem is to employ magnetic separation technology in strategic locations throughout the pipeline system, refineries, chemical plants, city gates, and loading facilities.
This is accomplished by two methods: In natural gas and oil pipelines, binder materials such as paraffins, glycols, and asphaltenes marry up with fine ferrous and sand particles trapping to the magnetic fields when passing through the black powder separators.
When the composition is primarily iron sulfides, there is opportunity for auto-ignition (smolders and flames), precautions must be taken to saturate the black powder with a chemical to neutralize it.