Mass Flow Measurement by Alcohol Tracer Dilution

Abstract

Field trials have shown that isopropanol and butan-2-ol can be used for the accurate measurement of steam flow in two-phase pipelines. These steam phase tracers are injected as liquids using conventional metering pumps and sampled quantitatively at downstream sampling points by collection of steam condensate and brine into simple screw-cap bottles. Composite steam-liquid tracers can be prepared by mixing isopropanol and a water phase tracer (e.g: benzoate or rhodamine WT). Alcohols can be analysed to a high accuracy and at relatively low cost by established procedures developed for bloodalcohol analysis. Only small samples are required (<10 mL) and these can be air-mailed to laboratories at low cost. The use of alcohol tracers allows significant simplifications to be made to tracer dilution equipment and procedures, with a resulting reduction in overall costs.