The EASZ-1 is a fast response online water detection in fuel instrument . By continuously monitoring the dissolved or free water in fuels, operators can immediately detect inefficiencies or failures in filters, coalescers and separators and possible contamination from other sources such as leaks or compromised products.

EESIFLO’s low powered water in oil monitor has enabled it to be fully certified to ATEX and IECEx zone 0 applications.

Fuel Analysis: Water Detection in Jet Fuel, Diesel Fuel, and Gasoline Benefits

Fully certified water in Fuel detector. Applicable standards ATEX and IECEx

There are numerous potential contamination sources along the process, particularly for jet fuel.

Water should be removed during the production, transportation and loading of fuel. Despite these process controls, potential contamination sources still exist . Free water can be harmful and fast response online monitoring can detect a failure or filter break immediately so that operators can implement systems to remedy the fault.

For more information, contact your local EESIFLO representative or log on to www.eesiflo.com

Related Topics

Water in Jet Fuel

Water can occur in three different forms in jet fuel -dissolved in the fuel, as a separate liquid phase (free water), and as a fuel-water emulsion. Some amount of dissolved water is present in all fuels. Free water or a water emulsion are potentially hazardous and must be avoided.

Dissolved Water

Water is very slightly soluble in jet fuel, and conversely, jet fuel is very slightly soluble in water. The amount of water that jet fuel can dissolve increases with the aromatics content of the fuel and temperature.

Fuel in contact with free water is saturated with water, i.e., the fuel has dissolved all the water it can hold. A typical water-saturated kerosene-type fuel contains between 40 and 80 ppm dissolved water at 21ºC (70ºF). If the temperature of the fuel increases, it can dissolve more water. Conversely, if the temperature of water-saturated fuel decreases, some of the water dissolved in the fuel will separate as free water.

In the absence of free water, jet fuel can pick up water from the air. The amount depends on the relative humidity of the air. Fuel in contact with air with a relative humidity of 50 percent will contain only half as much water as water-saturated fuel at that temperature.

The above statements assume that the fuel is in equilibrium with free water or moist air. Fuel close to a fuel-water or fuel-air interface will reach water equilibrium in a matter of minutes. However, if the volume of fuel is large and the area of the interface is limited – conditions that exist in a large fuel storage tank – some of the fuel will be many feet from the interface. In the absence of mixing, it will take a lot longer for this portion to reach water equilibrium. In fact, fuel in a large tank may never come to complete water equilibrium since ambient temperature and relative humidity are constantly changing.

Free Water

In jet fuel, free water exists as a separate liquid phase. Since water is denser than jet fuel, free water, under the influence of gravity, forms a lower layer and the jet fuel an upper layer. If jet fuel and water are mixed, normally they will quickly separate again. The speed of the separation and the sharpness of the fuel-water interface are indications of the fuel’s water separability.

As mentioned above, when water-saturated jet fuel cools, free water separates out, taking the form of many very small droplets sometimes called dispersed water. Even if they are not stabilized by surfactants . The droplets coalesce slowly because of their small size. The suspended droplets give the fuel a hazy appearance. The haze will disappear if the fuel is warmed enough to redissolve the water.

Emulsion

An emulsion is a mixture of two immiscible liquids in which very small droplets of one – less than 100 micrometers in diameter – are dispersed in the continuous phase of the other. An everyday emulsion is mayonnaise, a mixture of egg yolk (droplet) in oil (continuous phase). But here, it is emulsions of water (droplet) in jet fuel (continuous phase) that are of interest.

While immiscible liquids normally separate if they have different densities and/or surface tensions, an emulsion can persist for a long time. The mixture is stabilized by surfactants that congregate at the surface of the droplets, preventing them from coalescing.

Liquids that are immiscible have very different polarities. In the case of water and jet fuel, water is polar4 and jet fuel is non-polar. Some molecules contain both a polar group (polar head) and a non-polar group within the same molecule. This duality causes the molecule to migrate to the interface between a pair of immiscible liquids, with the polar group interacting with the polar liquid and the non-polar group interacting with the non-polar liquid. These molecules are called surfactants (a contraction of surface active agents) because they are active at the surface between the immiscible liquids. And because they work at the interface, not in the bulk liquid, trace amounts can affect the properties of a large volume of liquid.