A major northeastern refinery processes jet fuel at a rate of 31,000 BPD.  The jet fuel is sent through a salt tower and then a clay tower prior to distribution via truck.

An extremely high level of free water was causing severe fouling of the $1 million dollar clay tower requiring expensive clean-up of this unit. This happened whenever jet fuel was processed through the system, downstream of the salt tower, and was causing some of the samples to fail the refinery clarity tests. When a failure such as this occurred an additional problem was created.  Scheduled fuel transport by trucks had to be revised or cancelled due to off-specification final product. The truck had to be re-routed to another site to pick up its scheduled shipment of jet fuel.

The operator installed Pall’s high efficiency AquaSep® Liquid/Liquid coalescer system that included a Pall resin bonded, glass fiber, pre-filter. This system, and pre-filter were installed, in series, upstream of the clay tower. The pre-filter removes solid particulates 2 microns and larger from the jet fuel stream. The AquaSep coalescer removes free water in the jet fuel stream down to less than 15 ppmv, thus eliminating fouling of the clay tower completely.

Pall’s AquaSep Liquid/Liquid coalescing system has provided on-spec jet fuel since its installation in January, 1977. The pre-filters only require changeout every 8-14 weeks. The coalescer elements have only been changed once in 21 months of service.

Prior to the installation of the AquaSep coalescer, the clay bed was changed, or overhauled, every six (6) weeks at a cost of $30,000 per overhaul. This has been totally eliminated, resulting in a cost savings of over $450,000 in less than 2 years.