Heat tracing systems types

The transfer and storage of materials that have high freezing points and that become viscous or solid at normal ambient temperatures have long been a difficult problem. Consequently, piping and equipment often need to be heated and this is usually accomplished with some type of heat tracing system. Three types of tracing systems are employed ... 

Of the explosives listed in Table 4, only those such as NG with vapour pressures greater than 10 Pa at 25°C are good candidates for the direct detection of vapour by current instrumental techniques. However, vapour pressure rises markedly with temperature. In addition, consideration of the thermal stability data in Table 4 offers the possibility of heating samples containing traces of involatile explosives such as RDX or PETN to increase their vapour pressure and render them detectable. This is the basis of the common technique of combining a heated inlet system with a vapour-type detector, for example, the method of desorption from a swab on a heated stage often used with IMS or TEA systems. This approach has greatly broadened the scope of what were previously viewed as vapour-type detectors and is now standard practice such instruments are now known as particle detectors. 

Fluid Tracing Systems Steam tracing is the most common type of industrial pipe tracing. In 1960, over 95 percent of industrial tracing systems were steam traced. By 1995, improvements in electric heating technology increased the electric share to 30 to 40 percent. Fluid systems other than steam are rather uncommon and account for less than 5 percent of tracing systems. 

Chemisorption systems are sometimes used for removing trace concentrations of contaminants, but the difficulty of regeneration makes such systems unsuitable for most process applications so most adsorption processes depend on physical adsorption. The forces of physical adsorption are weaker than the forces of chemisorption so the heats of physical adsorption are lower and the adsorbent is more easily regenerated. Several different types of force are involved. For nonpolar systems the major contribution is generally from dispersion-repulsion (van der Waals) forces, which are a fundamental property of all matter. When the surface is polar, depending on the nature of the sorbate molecule, there may also be important contributions from polarization, dipole, and quadmpole interactions. Selective adsorption of a polar species such as water or a quadrupolar species such as CO2 from a mixture with other nonpolar species can therefore be accomplished by using a polar adsorbent. Indeed, adjustment of surface polarity is one of the main ways of tailoring adsorbent selectivity. 

The distillation train first separates the benzene/toluene byproduct from main crude styrene stream (8). Unconverted EB is separated from styrene (9) and recycled to the reaction section. Various heat recovery schemes are used to conserve energy from the EB/SM column system. In the final purification step (10), trace C9 components and heavies are separated from the finished SM. To minimize polymerization in distillation equipment, a dinitrophenolic type inhibitor is co-fed with the crude feed from the reaction section. Typical SM purity ranges between 99.90% and 99.95%. 

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