Raman spectroscopy is a proven tool for applications in various areas in the petrochemical industry from the refinery onward. The HTVS™ or High Throughput Virtual Slit of the Tornado Raman spectroscopy based analyzer has been shown to be of benefit in the refinery itself by being able to make accurate and reliable measurements of various fuel properties. These include direct measurements such as olefin content, aromatics content, and benzene. Inferential measurements have also proven to be viable including octane number (RON and MON) and Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP). Measurement of multiple critical process attributes makes Raman a cost-effective and reliable tool in the refinery.

See the following for more information: Proceedings Paper – Motor Fuel Property Prediction by Inferential Spectroscopy 3. Hard and Soft Realities of Measuring Olefins in Gasoline  (Proceedings of the 61st Annual Analysis Division Symposium 2016, Galveston, TX USA, by M. Trygstad, B. Behr and M. Kemper).

Raman spectroscopy has been used extensively for downstream production in the petrochemical industry. For example, Raman is a very good tool for monitoring the production of xylenes. Raman can distinguish and selectively quantify the various xylene positional isomers (ortho, meta, and para) as well as ethyl benzene. The power of Tornado HTVS™, or High Throughput Virtual Slit Raman allows this measurement to be accomplished in one second or less.

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is the process of capturing carbon dioxide emissions from large industrial sources or the atmosphere, where it is then used for other processes, to create products, or safely stored in deep geological formations. Raman spectroscopy enables monitoring, process control, and optimization at various stages of the CCUS process, from initial capture to transport and transformation into the final product. For example,  Raman analyzers can be used directly in-line to determine CO₂ loading, complete ion speciation, and solvent degradation in an aqueous monoethanolamine (MEA) scrubbing solution.

Raman spectroscopy has been used extensively as a process monitoring tool in fertilizer production. Raman has been proven to be able to measure substances of interest such as urea and nitrates accurately. Tornado’s High Throughput Virtual Slit, HTVS™ Raman allows for the most accurate and best time-resolved measurements of these analytes on-line.

The use of Raman Spectroscopy in oil refineries and other petrochemical processes has increased notably in the last few years. Monitoring of gases either in the reactor headspace or in the process lines is vitally important to ensuring process understanding. Measurement of H₂ in process streams is of particular interest because there are few other good ways to measure this gaseous species. Raman is, in fact, a good tool, in general, to quantitatively measure homonuclear diatomic molecules not able to be measured by IR, such as Hydrogen (H₂), Nitrogen (N₂), and Oxygen (O₂). With Raman spectroscopy-based analyzers from Tornado, other important gases critical to various processes and products such as Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) can be measured. As examples, these include Carbon Dioxide (CO₂), Carbon Monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons (speciation from C1 to C6) nitrogen-oxygen gas species (NO_x), sulfur-oxygen gas species (SO_x), ammonia (NH₃), chlorine (Cl₂) and hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) can also potentially be measured by Tornado HTVS™ Raman.

Target gaseous species of interest for Raman include:

• Hydrogen, Nitrogen, and Oxygen
• Hydrocarbons speciated from C1 to C6
• Carbon Dioxide
• Carbon Monoxide
• SO_x
• NO_x
• NH₃
• Others