Special Refinery Processes Amenable to Corrosion Inhibitors

8 Special Refinery Processes Amenable to Corrosion Inhibitors 

The foregoing description has purposefully been kept as general as possible in order to illustrate the basic criteria for wet refinery corrosion and its solution by chemical treatment with neutralizers and film-forming inhibitors. Use of neutralizers and inhibitors has been described in the crude still and overheads. The same concepts can be applied in other systems where there is a hydrocarbon product in contact with liquid water containing corrosive constituents, usually hydrochloric acid and hydrogen sulfide. 

Corrosion by naphthenic acids can be eliminated by them with neutralizing NaOH to form oil-soluble salts and the acid number of a crude containing naphthenic acids often gives an indication of its corrosivity during processing. This problem is not a major importance in refinery operations, where resistant alloys such as Type 316 stainless steel are used. 

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