BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF PLANT AND PILOT-PLANT OPERATIONS USING ONLINEMASS-SPECTROMETRY

Examples of improved data collection using an on-line mass spectromete r are illustrated with a vacuum flash separator, a catalyst show tube reactor, a mini-plant reactor study, a full-scale reactor study, an ai r-stripper study, and a reactor tracer experiment. In each instance, a mass spectrometer was used to determine flow-rates and compositions o r identify and quantify small impurities in process streams. Data from each of these projects resulted in solutions or understanding that no rmally would have taken much more time to obtain without the use of on -line mass spectrometry.