Dumb Question For Our Chemist Members

[southatlantic]

Tim,

I stand corrected, Been doing some work on the upstream side where demusifiers are used to drop the water. Chemistry same just adjustment of crosslinking, monomer ratio's and polmer MW... I should have read more closely before I hit the reply button.

Thanks for pointing this out.

Really good discussion. But the original question was not so much on the effectiveness of a particular additive but on whether a one step vs. a two step mixing process would make any difference. I just happened to illustrate it with Startron because this is what I personally use. There are now at least a couple of other new additives now on the market that use these enzymes, by the way. I have been using it with every fill for 2.5 years and personally I am happy with the results and so are 3 other friends who have been using one of the other enzyme-based brands. Perhaps in an area where marine diesel is of a higher quality and boats are used more often the benefits would not be as great. These enzyme-based additives are fairly new. One other area where the same type of enzymes are beginning to make an impact is in waste-treatment facilities, based on the same small particle dispersion principles. I do not have experience with that application, but have seen a couple of presentations and the claims are impressive (can`t vouch for actual performance).

[mcjdljk]

South A,

If it works for you great, I am just commenting that no and I mean no major oil company, engine manufacturer nor industry/government group recognizes the effectiveness of these additives.

As for the waste water comparison... Have no heard of this. Typically dispersion is a bad thing ... the objective is clean water. Usually flocculants are added to remove solids, then...

Many waste water systems do use microbiological ponds/tanks to lower COD and BOD. This is quite different in many ways from what we are discussing. The critters in this ponds actually feed on the hydrocarbons etc. These are aqueous system that are extremely sensitive to rapid changes in temperature, chemistry etc. These are not enzymes but living microbes who happen to fancy the crap in waste water for dinner.

The one place where I know dispersion is used is for oil spills. Basically the chemistry (not an enzyme) breaks the oil up creating more surface area for the oil- eating microbes to dine. The microbes live in the water.

In conclusion not an expert on waste water systems but have seen a few in the oil patch. The enzymes may work but as pointed out here and other threads ensymes are typical denatured in hyrocarbons any comparison with an aqueous system is a big stretch.

Anyway good luck and excuse the long replies.