Ethylene oxide is used in sterilizing equipment
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weird we dont have any on site or anything that has it in it.
You usually see people pop for it on testing when they use the sterilized medical plastic vials.
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In smaller amounts, ethylene oxide is used as a pesticide as well as a sterilizing agent.
Iām wondering if it gets polymerized somewhere along the process.
This is a strong candidate for this issue.
pj2002116.pdf (350.8 KB)
āFor the PEO/DMAc and PEO/TP solutions of lower concentrations (0.5 and 1.0 wt%), I could not be estimated with sufficient accuracy by the present method: a tremendous number of crystallites appeared and were rapidly precipitated in the former solution, and the number of crystallites in the latter solution was too small to achieve sufficient accuracyā
@johnbigoilco would love to get the exact results on that failed COA.
ill see if I can get the results from the lab this was just a call over the phone.
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Tank filling industry does an ethylene oxide cleaning sequence with tanks when they are going through recertification or scheduled cleaningā¦
It is used as a sterilization agent in situations where moisture can not aid in the sterilization process.
Applicable to gas cylinders which are highly moisture sensitive.
As I stated before these issues happening are due to impurities in hydrocarbon gasses, as the purified gas industry is shifting priorities towards the officialized pharma sector.
They are no longer purifying the gasses through the multiple stages, and are skipping the multiple stage rinses, when using ethylene oxide to clean vessels, that they are still performing on their USP/medical grade gas vesselsā¦
Theyāre just lowering the guidelines/strictness that the oil/gas employees need to follow on the SOP/Standards issued.
We are the least likely customer/clients to pay for an internal audit, litigation suite, and damages claims.
Especially through the pandemic.
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Iāve never heard of Eto being used to clean tanks - at least not the solvent tanks used by the extraction industry. It reacts violently to rust and thereās frequently rust inside improperly maintained carbon steel cylinders. Itās a volatile material and is considered to be cancer agent. I wouldnāt want to use it to process carbon steel.
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What are the chances getting gas people to test for all the residual solvents we get tested for as producers?
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@johnbigoilco i got the same. Ethylene oxide
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What is difference between instrument grade and non instrument grade LPGs? Higher purification?
The term āinstrument gradeā is used for purified o2 used in pneumatic instrumentation.
Bright side?
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Youāre not alone?
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| Boiling point | 10.4 Ā°C (50.7 Ā°F; 283.5 K) |
|---|---|
| Highly soluble in water |
Time to slow boil water washed butane and find out if the problem goes away
Butaneās Solubility in water is 61 mg per liter so you wont lose much tane
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Yeah.
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I never observed this using only propane
I observed this right away upon switching to isobutane early this year
Perhaps someone could confirm it doesnāt happen with their propane, and then see whatās on (or not on) the COA for impurities
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Would that pseudo explain why the mol sieve was getting extremely warm. Would the EO holding onto some water that is reacting with the sieve beads, the neopentane is doing it, or both. With the odd, lack there of, pressure in the jars. Iām starting to lean towards the neopentane and abandon the propylene, but not completely. Itās still on the suspect list
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Full spectrum testing on hydrocarbons can be done but itās terribly expensive and, frankly, not effective as that it does not guarantee the contents of the tank you receive. Full spectrum testing is unnecessary unless one is searching for an unknown contaminate.
Gas analyses like the CannaGas test posted above is only reflective of the bulk load of product from the manufacturer. The only way to confirm the profile of the gas you receive is to test the cylinder after itās been filled.
The industry does not look for contaminates that are not typically present in hydrocarbons. It makes no sense to test output from a hydrocarbon fractioning plant for chlorine contamination, because there arent any present in the input or in the purification process. After air gases, sulfur species, water and CO2 are removed from crude oil, only hydrocarbons remain. A fractioning column separates the hydrocarbons and once separated into species, GC-FID is the best method to test purity as it allows the lab qualify and quantify hydrocarbon cross-contamination.
The manufacturer pulls a sample from the delivery transport after itās been loaded and tests it using GC-FID; confirming the contents of the transport unit.
After itās been delivered, a good vendor will pull a sample from their bulk tank and either analyze it in-house OR send it out for 3rd party getting; with GC-FID confirming the contents of their bulk tank.
After that who knows . . . Most fill-plants have some system in place for pre-fill removal of residual solvents and other junk that an inept processor might introduce into the container. (I donāt know if itās proper to call it decontamination or not - itās not like theyāre run through an autoclave). Still, there is no guarantee of the material in the tank you receive.
Full spectrum testing is only needed to find unknown contamination. A proper 3rd party GC-FID hydrocarbon test to verify purity and rule out BTEX contamination costs us $3-400 per sample.
Looking for answers and to develop testing protocals acceptable to the industry, I need some input.
Would any processors be willing to:
A. pay more for product in cylinders that have been individually tested by GC-FID to confirm hydrocarbon content and rule out benzene/BTEX?
B. pay a little more for a group of cylinders (9*100 pounders to a pallet) that have been filled then batch tested by GC-FID to confirm hydrocarbon content and rule-out benzene/BTEX?
C. pay more (a lot more) for product in cylinders that have been individually tested by GC-FID and Mass Spec to rule out any potential contamination?
In any event, Iāve written earlier on the benzene contamination and other threads: if you suspect that the solvent you received is defective / contaminated / is fucking-up your end product and costing you big $, there is only ONE way to confirm your suspicions. YOU OUGHT TO GET THE GAS TESTED. Only then can you rightfully engage your supplier for providing defective material OR rule the gas out as the source of your problem.
Do not return it to the supplier (or a different local supplier) for testing, because both the testing and the reporting will be done by a non-neutral party. People will bullshit you to keep your business.
As soon as a problem is realized, the extractor should send the whole cylinder and contents to a neutral third party for testing. It might be a pain in the ass to ship and expensive to test, but it is the one and only way to determine if a solvent issue is responsible for your problems.
We want to get to the bottom of any and every problem being blamed on propane, n- and iso butane.
The first problem needed to be solved was benzene in the final product, now itās chalky diamonds. I donāt want to re-hash the benzene matter on this thread. So far, the chalk issue has been blamed on nitrogen, propylene, neopentane, isobutane, defective hydrocarbons being refined, defective manufacturing processes, and even the presence of an oxygenated hydrocarbon that has no business being in C3 or C4s. Unless and until testing confirms the source of the problem threads like this will go on for ever. Everyone has opinions, but they prove nothing without confirmation by testing.
In mid-November I was contacted by a West coast processor with end product that popped for benzene. Heās not likely to ever buy from our Ohio fill plant, so we are a pretty neutral tester. We donāt have a mass spectrometer, but donāt need it to test in this matter because the problem was benzene. We have a benzene standard to test against and offered to test the gas in house for free, so long as they cover the shipping costs The user didnāt want to / couldnāt send the whole cylinder to us, so we sent instructions on taking a sample & strapping it to a pallet. Weād arrange for truck to make the pickup & transport to our facility. After testing we would send the sample it to others for confirmation of our results.
Things seemed to be moving along well as late as November 19. Then radio silence. No reply to voice message or email from me.
Weāre willing to help get to the bottom of these problems, but itās not reasonable for us to invest thousands of $ testing gas for a user that will probably never become a customer. Weāll even locate a mass spec lab to do a full spectrum search for contaminates. Depending on the results, once the gremlin(s) is/are identified, an affordable testing protocol for them can likely be developed to search exclusively for their presence.
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Instrument Grade is a gas grade originally used by Diversified as an identifier for their odorless 99.5+% pure C3 and C4ās.
Other grades are aerosol and industrial.
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Recent deliveries of bulk n-butane to us had the following levels of neopentane:
770 ppm
865 ppm
787 ppm, and
1080 ppm
The 1117 is higher, but not much higher than the load we got that was neo- heavy @ 1080.