Our technology empowers refiners to process opportunity crudes efficiently, transforming potential obstacles into advantages. By improving operational reliability and driving margin growth, we ensure our customers get the most out of these discounted crudes. Innovation is at the heart of everything we do, with product differentiation and cutting-edge R&D driving our solutions.

Our consistent technical advancements, particularly in emulsion breakers, have proven essential for refining opportunity crudes.

Our line of multifunctional products combines:

• Dehydrating aids
• Reverse emulsion breakers to keep the water oil free
• A solids wetting agent to help move solids out of the oil layer

The heart of any desalter chemistry program is the emulsion breaker (EB), which facilitates the separation of oil and water in the desalting process. Traditionally, adjunct chemistries have supplemented the primary EB through:

1. Solids Wetting
2. Reverse Emulsion Breakers
3. Acid

Reactive adjunct chemistry, a patent-pending fourth category, works by reacting with contaminants that are antagonistic to emulsion breaking. This improves both the speed of emulsion breaking and rag layer control, resulting in higher desalter efficiency without the need for additional capital investments.

Enhanced Desalter Capacity: This innovative chemistry allows refiners to process more crude without the need for new desalting units.

Rag Layer Control: By improving the oil/water interface, reactive adjunct chemistry reduces rag layer formation, resulting in cleaner separations.

Improved Brine Quality: The tighter control of the oil/water interface significantly enhances brine quality, reducing the generation of slop oil and the costs associated with its reprocessing.

Dorf Ketal’s Amine Removal Agent is an innovative, non-acid additive designed to work in conjunction with your desalter’s emulsion breaker. This patent-pending technology effectively reduces the levels of tramp amines in crude and desalter wash water. By targeting amines in the desalter, this agent helps lower the risk of amine chloride salt deposition in the crude tower overhead, as indicated by reduced amine salt point temperatures. This approach significantly mitigates corrosion risk in the crude column overhead—without the need for acid.

The Amine Removal Agent, based on aldehyde chemistry, reacts with amines and ammonia in the crude, forming imines that are easier to remove from the crude stream. This process effectively breaks the amine cycle at the desalter stage. Additionally, both the amine removal agent and the imines are biodegradable in wastewater treatment plants, making this solution not only efficient but also environmentally responsible.

Dorf Ketal provides a highly effective organic acid for sweet crude desalting, outperforming other market options in removing metals.

Removes iron and calcium without causing scale buildup.

Non-oil soluble, reducing the acid content in the crude.

Mineral acid-free, preventing the introduction of additional risks.

Non-corrosive to feed systems, with added corrosion inhibitors for enhanced safety.

Additionally, we offer a non-acid, neutral pH alternative for those seeking a safer option for this application, further enhancing operational flexibility.

Sour crudes present a unique challenge when H₂S and organic calcium are present, leading to the generation of water-insoluble solids, which create stable emulsions and increase oil carryover. Dorf Ketal’s organic acid solution is specifically formulated to address these issues, providing superior performance in breaking these emulsions and reducing oil under carry.

This product offers the same benefits as our solution for sweet crudes, delivering a versatile, highly effective option for refiners working with sour crudes.

Dorf Ketal’s Metals Removal Solutions provide refiners with cutting-edge technology to efficiently remove metals while protecting refining processes from scale, corrosion, and emulsion challenges. Whether working with sweet or sour crudes, we ensure that your desalting systems operate at maximum efficiency and safety.

As described in our four patents and March 2017 HP article, TANSCIENT’s thermal stability and oil solubility helps deliver unprecedented P-efficiency. Conventional phosphate esters used in HTCI lose 75% of their phosphorous in less than 30 minutes of exposure to high temperatures, while TANSCIENT retains more than 90% of its phosphorous content after 2 hours. We achieve this thermal stability and oil solubility by esterification and ethoxylation of the phosphate ester to a polymeric triester.

The difference does not stop with the production of a polymeric triester. The alcohol reacted with the ester is synthesized to deliver the high solubility of long chain hydrocarbons and the increased stability of branching those chains. This advanced chemistry allows polyphosphate penetration of the FeS layer with a phosphate rich outer layer to enhance protection with Fe polyphosphate and a more robust Fe scale.

Higher P-efficiency means you feed less phosphorous to get the corrosion protection you need. Current treatment rates with traditional phosphate esters are typically in the range of 0.7 ppm to 4 ppm of P. The amount of P required to obtain equal corrosion protection with TANSCIENT™ is approximately 0.1 ppm to 0.5 ppm P. For refiners desiring very low corrosion rates or operation at higher TAN, TANSCIENT™ offers the option to increase treat rates without concern about the impact of high phosphorus levels. This also offers greater flexibility to respond to a sudden spike of TAN or loss of passivation. For refiners using high TAN sporadically, TANSCIENT™ offers more flexibility to safely build passivation layer with minimum impact on existing surface chemistry.

MAXSCAV™ was specifically designed for the treatment of H₂S in natural gas using contact towers, bubble towers, and UltraFab systems. While MEA-triazine remains the most widely used non-regenerative H₂S scavenger due to its cost-effectiveness, its molar efficiency in capturing H₂S has long fallen short of its theoretical potential. Quaternary ammonium compounds have been introduced to accelerate the reaction between MEA-triazine and H₂S, but inefficiencies such as increased pH, scale formation, and downstream refining complications remain.

MAXSCAV™, a patent-pending technology, dramatically increases the molar efficiency of MEA-triazine and other chemistries like MMA-triazine, Glyoxal, and zinc-based scavengers. This enhanced efficiency leads to significant reductions in MEA-triazine required to capture H₂S, offering potential cost savings of up to 25% to 50%. By reducing chemical over-dosage, MAXSCAV™ also minimizes the costs associated with scale formation and downstream refining issues, such as reduced desalter performance and an elevated risk of overhead corrosion.

Increased molar efficiency of existing H₂S scavengers

Up to 50% reduction in chemical consumption

Lower operational costs due to less scale formation and downstream impacts

Applicable to multiple H₂S scavenging chemistries, including MEA-triazine, MMA-triazine, Glyoxal, and zinc-based systems

Dorf Ketal’s MAXSCAV™ technology represents a major advancement in H₂S scavenging, offering refiners and natural gas processors a cost-effective, efficient, and scalable solution to their H₂S challenges.

The COMPASS Modeling System is a customized, data-driven treatment program designed to maximize the efficiency and operational longevity of cracked gas compressors. It provides the following advantages:

Precise Calculation of Polytropic Efficiencies: COMPASS accurately calculates polytropic efficiencies at each compressor stage, allowing for enhanced optimization and better performance tracking.

Predictive Power Analysis: The system predicts specific power requirements, ensuring that your compressors are operating efficiently.

Troubleshooting Process Problems: COMPASS assists with identifying and solving process issues, providing insights into potential operational challenges before they escalate.

“What If” Predictions: It allows for the simulation of changes in wash water or oil addition, enabling operators to optimize processes based on various scenarios.

Used alongside the Fouling Assessment Tool (FAT), COMPASS helps maintain consistent and extended operation periods between plant shutdowns, ensuring higher uptime and reliability in ethylene production.

The COMPASS program integrates with customer SPYRO programs to accurately evaluate and monitor stage-by-stage efficiency of CGC systems. This detailed analysis helps plant operators pinpoint the optimal amounts and locations for adding wash water or oil, improving the system’s overall efficiency and reliability.

By leveraging the COMPASS Modeling System, operators can achieve:

Improved performance tracking with sophisticated modeling.

Longer operational cycles with reduced downtime between plant shutdowns.

Precise optimizations that lead to improved efficiency and cost-saving

Our systems leverage web-based plant predictive models that utilize unique algorithms to accurately predict plant performance. This cutting-edge approach allows us to:

Utilize Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for units being treated with our chemical programs.

Apply statistical modeling to analyze and understand program results, providing valuable insights.

Integrate engineering software programs for remote monitoring and reporting, ensuring optimized results across various operations.

We offer a comprehensive range of modeling services tailored to meet the specific needs of refineries, including:

Crude Unit Overheads: Monitoring dew point, pH, and amine/ammonia salt points for precise electrolyte management.

Charge Gas Compressor Efficiency: Tracking performance in ethylene plants to maintain optimal operation.

Chemical Treatment and Wash Oil/Water: Developing best practices for refining processes, ensuring maximum efficiency.

Normalized Heater Inlet Temperatures: Monitoring pre-heat exchanger train data to adjust for fluctuating conditions in crude units.

Heat Exchanger Monitoring: Ensuring critical units like CAT Crackers and Dilution Steam Generators run smoothly with ongoing performance checks.

Our daily monitoring reports, accessible even on a remote basis, provide actionable recommendations to help you optimize plant performance and ensure continuous improvement.

Ethylene Plants: In ethylene production, ACtify® delivers superior fouling protection, reduces the overall costs of fouling polymer control, and eliminates the need for nitrogen addition, significantly enhancing operational efficiency.

Styrene Plants: ACtify® provides a more cost-effective alternative to DNBP, reducing styrene losses and offering superior protection against DVB cross-linking in packed towers and during the end-of-run phase.

Butadiene Plants: For butadiene production, ACtify® improves fouling control, reduces losses caused by butadiene dimer, and enhances the overall performance of polymer control processes.

Enhanced polymer control through improved stoichiometric efficiency and faster reaction kinetics.

Lower operational costs by reducing chemical usage and preventing nitrogen addition.

Superior fouling protection in ethylene, styrene, and butadiene plants, ensuring higher productivity and less downtime.

We address visbreaker fouling with a comprehensive, data-driven approach designed to optimize your unit’s performance:

Feed and Deposit Analysis: We study the feed and deposit characteristics to identify the mechanisms that contribute to fouling, allowing us to target specific problem areas.

Simulation Tools: We utilize simulation tools to test the activity of our antifoulants on your feed, ensuring the most effective formulation for your specific operation.

Customized Solutions: Our team develops new formulations tailored to combat your facility’s unique refining challenges, enhancing your visbreaker’s efficiency and longevity.

Improved unit efficiency through targeted fouling control.

Reduction in downtime caused by fouling-related performance drops.

Customized formulations that address the specific needs of your feed and process.

ACtivate™ PET catalysts are tailored to meet unique manufacturing needs, ensuring a balance of efficiency, quality, and performance in demanding applications. These catalysts can be fine-tuned to meet specific production requirements, delivering tangible benefits in resin production, and product performance.

Reduced Resin Production Costs: ACtivate™ catalysts significantly lower the overall cost of PET resin production, increasing operational efficiency.

Lower Preform Molding Costs: Manufacturers benefit from reduced expenses in preform molding processes.

Greater Light Weighting for Hot Fill Bottles: ACtivate™ technology supports the light-weighting of hot fill bottles, improving sustainability without sacrificing performance.

Increased Clarity and Purity of Films: The catalysts result in clearer, purer PET films, ideal for applications requiring high optical quality.

Decreased DEG Concentrations: ACtivate™ technology reduces Diethylene Glycol (DEG) concentrations, enhancing resin quality.

Reduced Oligomer, Acetaldehyde, and Haze Levels: Lower levels of these byproducts lead to improved resin aesthetics and reduced downstream processing challenges.

Resins produced using ACtivate™ catalysts exhibit unique crystallinity properties compared to antimony-catalyzed resins. This difference in crystallinity, combined with higher esterification and polymerization rates, significantly reduces production costs. Furthermore, these crystallinity changes enhance downstream processing by reducing mold cycle times in carbonated soft drink (CSD) bottles and improving the light-weighting of hot fill bottles.