Hydrocarbon Testing Laboratories

Hydrocarbon Testing Laboratories (including Oil or Water Testing, Darkrooms, etc.) 

Laboratories are normally classified nonhazardous locations if the quantities of flammable and combustible liquids are within the requirements of NFPA. Normally a vapor collection hood is provided when sampling and measurements are conducted with exposed liquids. The primary concern is the exhaust of vapors and the storage and removal material saturated with liquids. The exhaust hood, ducting and a radius of 1.5 meters (5 ft.) from the exhaust vent should be considered an electrically classified area. 

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EPA. 1982a. Chlorinated hydrocarbons. Test method - method 612. Cincinnati, OH U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Monitoring Systems Laboratory. 

The study of elementary reactions for a specific requirement such as hydrocarbon oxidation occupies an interesting position in the overall process. At a simplistic level, it could be argued that it lies at one extreme. Once the basic mechanism has been formulated as in Chapter 1, then the rate data are measured, evaluated and incorporated in a data base (Chapter 3), embedded in numerical models (Chapter 4) and finally used in the study of hydrocarbon oxidation from a range of viewpoints (Chapters 5-7). Such a mode of operation would fail to benefit from what is ideally an intensely cooperative and collaborative activity. Feedback is as central to research as it is to hydrocarbon oxidation Laboratory measurements must be informed by the sensitivity analysis performed on numerical models (Chapter 4), so that the key reactions to be studied in the laboratory can be identified, together with the appropriate conditions. A realistic assessment of the error associated with a particular rate parameter should be supplied to enable the overall uncertainty to be estimated in the simulation of a combustion process. Finally, the model must be validated against data for real systems. Such a validation, especially if combined with sensitivity analysis, provides a test of both the chemical mechanism and the rate parameters on which it is based. Therefore, it is important that laboratory determinations of rate parameters are performed collaboratively with both modelling and validation experiments. 

As seen in Chapter 2, mixtures of hydrocarbons and petroleum fractions are analyzed in the laboratory using precise standards published by ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) and incorporated for the most part into international (ISO), European (EN) and national (NF) collections. We wiil recall below the methods utilizing a classification by boiling point ... 

Pesticides. Chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides (qv) are often found in feed or water consumed by cows (19,20) subsequently, they may appear in the milk, where they are not permitted. Tests for pesticides are seldom carried out in the dairy plant, but are most often done in regulatory or private specialized laboratories. Examining milk for insecticide residues involves extraction of fat, because the insecticide is contained in the fat, partitioning with acetonitrile, cleanup (FlorisH [26686-77-1] column) and concentration, saponification if necessary, and determination by means of paper, thin-layer, microcoulometric gas, or electron capture gas chromatography (see Trace and residue analysis). 

Commercial PCBs Toxic and Biochemical Effects. PCBs and related halogenated aromatic hydrocarbons ehcit a diverse spectmm of toxic and biochemical responses in laboratory animals dependent on a number of factors including age, sex, species, and strain of the test animal and the dosing regimen (single or multiple) (27—32). In Bobwhite and Japanese quad, the LC q dose for several different commercial PCB preparations ranged from 600 to 30,000 ppm in the diet the LC q values for mink that were fed Aroclors 1242 and 1254 were 8.6 and 6.7 ppm in the diet, respectively (8,28,33). The... 

The response of any given feed to sink-float processing can be accurately established in the laboratory by testing with various heavy hq-uids. The hquids generally used for this purpose are listed in Table 19-12. These halogenated hydrocarbons are mutually miscible, which enables the preparation of almost any pulp density attainable in a commercial plant. Heavy-hquid test work provides the basis for specifying the optimum screen size for the preparation of the feed. 

Viewed in perspective, evidence of failure in service has been rare and the practical hazard is certainly very much lower than would appear from the results of laboratory tests. In chlorinated hydrocarbons the effect can be controlled by the addition of inhibitors, and, for example, the appropriate commercial degreasants containing these inhibitors are specified in a British detence standard. ... 

Gas-liquid chromatography (GLC) finds many applications outside the chemistry laboratory. If you ve ever had an emissions test on the exhaust system of your car, GLC was almost certainly the analytical method used. Pollutants such as carbon monoxide and unbumed hydrocarbons appear as peaks on a graph such as that shown in Figure 1.7. A computer determines the areas under these peaks, which are proportional to the concentrations of pollutants, and prints out a series of numbers that tells the inspector whether your car passed or failed the test. Many of the techniques used to test people lor drugs (marijuana, cocaine, and others) or alcohol also make use of gas-liquid chromatography. 

Hydraulic fluids themselves cannot be measured in blood, urine, or feces, but certain chemicals in them can be measured. Aliphatic hydrocarbons, which are major components of mineral oil hydraulic fluids and polyalphaolefin hydraulic fluids, can be detected in the feces. Certain components of organophosphate ester hydraulic fluids leave the body in urine. Some of these fluids inhibit the enzyme cholinesterase. Cholinesterase activity in blood can be measured. Because many other chemicals also inhibit cholinesterase activity in blood, this test is not specific for organophosphate ester hydraulic fluids. This test is not available at most doctor s offices, but can be arranged at any hospital laboratory. See Chapters 2 and 6 for more information. 

A La(Cr, Ni) 0, catalyst was tested for the cleanup of residual hydrocarbons in combustion streams by measuring the rate of methane oxidation in a differential laboratory flow reactor containing a sample of the catalyst. The following conversions were measured as a function of temperature with a fixed initial molar flow rate of methane. The inlet pressure was 1 bar and the methane mole fraction was 0.25. (Note that the conversions are small, so that the data approximately represent initial rates.) The rate law for methane oxidation is first-order with respect to methane concentration. 

Hydrocarbon materials have several different characteristics that can be used to define their level of hazard. Since no one feature can adequately define the level of risk for a particular substance they should be evaluated as a synergism. It should also be realized that these characteristics have been tested under strict laboratory conditions and procedures that may alter when applied to industrial environments. The main characteristics of combustible hydrocarbon materials which are of high interest for fire and explosion influences are described below. 

Underwriters Laboratories (UL) high rise (hydrocarbon) fire test UL 1709, has an average fire temperature of 1093 °C (2,000 °F) after 5 minutes. Therefore unless the an actual fire exposure heat radiation input calculation has been made, either a worst case fire exposure temperature could be assumed or a standard temperature to the limits of UL 1709 could be applied. 

Pure M-hexane is widely used in laboratories as an extractant for nonpolar compounds and in calibrating instruments for analyses of volatile organic compounds (VOC) or total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) (Kanatharana et al. 1993). Since such analyses may require very high levels of purity, laboratories sometimes carry out their own fractional distillation or other pretreatment-purification procedures to remove petroleum hydrocarbon impurities found in commercially available grades of M-hexane (Kanatharana et al. 1993). See Chapter 6 for more information about testing for -hexane. 

Determination of the total petroleum hydrocarbons in a sample is made by using several laboratory tests that are relatively inexpensive, relatively quick,... 

For petroleum and petroleum product releases in a nonsensitive area (if there is such an area), the analytical methods preferred to determine the concentration of total petroleum hydrocarbons in environmental media is the standard EPA test method (EPA 418.1). For initial delineation of the area, test field kits may be used in nonsensitive areas, provided that the results are comparable to laboratory data. Final confirmatory sampling and analyses should be carried out using laboratory analyses. 

The effect of nano-scale ZVI injection and the related results agree well with previous laboratory and field tests undertaken by Colder Associates. Total chlorinated hydrocarbons decreased in the injection well from 7.076mg/l to 0.913mg/l within 24 hours of ZVI injection and to 0.410mg/l... 

Novel Processing Schemes Various separators have been proposed to separate the hydrogen-rich fuel in the reformate for cell use or to remove harmful species. At present, the separators are expensive, brittle, require large pressure differential, and are attacked by some hydrocarbons. There is a need to develop thinner, lower pressure drop, low cost membranes that can withstand separation from their support structure under changing thermal loads. Plasma reactors offer independence of reaction chemistry and optimum operating conditions that can be maintained over a wide range of feed rates and H2 composition. These processors have no catalyst and are compact. However, they are preliminary and have only been tested at a laboratory scale. 

ASTM E 1529 Standard Test Methods for Determining Effects of Large Eiydrocarbon Pool Fires on Structural Members and Assemblies and Underwriters Laboratories Inc. 1709 Standard for Rapid Rise Fire Tests of Protection Materials for Structural Steel are two tests which are used to evaluate the performance of structures, equipment, and protective materials to hydrocarbon fires (see Figure 5-17). 

In New York and Massachusetts where PCB contamination is always a possibility, the laboratory tests required by the state environmental protection agencies for analysis of a petroleum-contaminated soil are as follows (a) flash point (b) total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) (c) PCB screening (d) total organic halides (TOH) (e) reactivity of cyanide and sulfide (f) BTEX or equivalent (g) eight metals under TCLP (Toxicity Characteristics Leaching Procedure) for USTs and (h) full range of tests under TCLP for ASTs and spills. 

Energetic materials with strained or caged structures are often much more difficult to synthesize compared to their open chain counterparts. This presents a further challenge to researchers of new energetic materials - while new compounds can be synthesized on a laboratory scale, and their properties and performance tested, the complexity of the synthetic routes may render their use as explosives nonfeasible. This particularly applies to polynitropolycyclic hydrocarbons because the direct nitration of these hydrocarbons is not a feasible route of introducing nitro groups without considerable decomposition. 

IT Corporation performed laboratory-scale testing of the use of micronutrients from yeast extract to encourage biological polishing after thermally enhanced fluid injection with vacuum extraction (FIVE) for coral sand contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons. The commercial availability of this technology is unknown. 

Catalytic tests of n-pentane oxidation were carried out in a laboratory glass flow-reactor, operating at atmospheric pressure, and loading 3 g of catalyst diluted with inert material. Feed composition was 1 mol% n-pentane in air residence time was 2 g s/ml. The temperature of reaction was varied from 340 to 420°C. The products were collected and analyzed by means of gas chromatography. A FlP-l column (FID) was used for the separation of C5 hydrocarbons, MA and PA. A Carbosieve Sll column (TCD) was used for the separation of oxygen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. 

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