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For physical product data and material safety data sheets, the Flutec® Tracers are divided into
lower boiling tracers (with six, seven or eight carbons; boiling up to 105oC)
and higher boiling tracers (with nine, ten or eleven carbons; boiling over 115oC):
 Flutec® TG-Tracers share a unique set of properties which make
them ideal candidates for tracing and tagging applications:
- Non-toxic
- Non-corrosive
- Non-flammable
- Non-radioactive
- Non-combustible up to 450oC
- Chemically & thermally Stable
- The background atmospheric concentrations are negligible
- They can be detected at parts per quadrillion making them an
economic option
There are 14 Flutec® Tracers in the range with boiling
points between 45oC and 155oC, which allows multi-tracer
experiments to be performed.
Flutec® Tracers can be deployed, sampled and analysed
with the same instrumentation simultaneously.
Flutec® range of tracers are used to tag flowing media such as
atmospheric gases or liquids in oil fields. Some of their uses are
listed below
Flutec® Tracers are a crucial tool in maximising
productivity through accurate mapping of flow paths, volumes and
the geological structures of
oil and gas reservoirs. They are injected into the flow with an
injection-gas and will trace the path of the injection-gas to a
production well in
the subsurface environment, providing definitive information regarding
injector / producer communication, partitioning characteristics
and cycle times.
Traditional gas tracer techniques have involved the use of various
combustible radionuclides injected at high pressure , which have
obvious safety and environment issues. Unlike radionuclides Flutec® TG-Tracers
have excellent toxicological profiles and are not ozone depleting.
They also offer similar detection limits to radioisotope tracers,
however unlike radiotracers Flutec® Tracers do not
occur naturally within the reservoir eliminating the chance of
receiving spurious information
by masking, and offer the advantage of a wider portfolio enabling
multi-well tracer operations to be performed. They have transport
characteristics
comparable to methane and ethane, but with excellent chemical and
thermal stability.
Emissions from modern industrial plants do not respect
national borders and can travel many hundred of miles and mix with
other sources
of
pollution. Flutec® Tracers enable pockets of air to be identified
and followed from source of pollution to dispersal or deposition.
Flutec® Tracers are non-toxic and do not constitute
a pollution nuisance themselves, they are thermally stable and
have the ability
to survive high temperatures within most industrial stacks. When
in the air they behave as an inert material for the duration of
the
tracing
experiment. Flutec® Tracers have an extremely low
background reading and are detectable at parts per quadrillion
levels.
Flutec® Tracers have been used in notable atmospheric studies such
as the 'Across North America Tracer Experiment (ANATEX)'.
Industrial accidents of major
dimensions, releasing harmful radioactive or chemical material
to the atmosphere,
can have consequences extending to hundreds and even thousands
of miles impacting on human health and international trade.
Flutec® Tracers
are a tool to enable countries to develop contingency plans as
part of their emergency management programs. Flutec® Tracers
were chosen for the European Tracer Experiment (ETEX) in 1994 -
a European-wide
simulation of a release from a nuclear facility in France, ANATEX
in 1991 and more recenlty the Urban 2000 project in Salt Lake City.
Flutec® Tracers also find application in many other consumer
and industrial applications which require tracability of an item,
one such
application is building ventilation studies - understanding and
measuring airflow for energy conversation and indoor air quality
assessments.
Throughout the world there are thousands of miles of High
Pressure Fluid Filled (HPFF) underground electricity cables. Each
cable, although
designed for heavy duty work, has the potential to rupture, leaking
environmentally damaging dielectric fluid. Flutec® Tracers
enable leaks to be detected accurately and quickly. The dielectric
fluid is
tagged with a small concentration of Flutec® Tracer
which is transported along with the leaking dielectric fluid into
the surrounding subsurface
environment. The dissolved Flutec® Tracer volatilises
and is emitted into the air through any cracks for instance in
city streets.
With
the use of samplers and real-time monitors specialist tracer organisations
can detect the leak to within 2 feet on a several mile span
of buried cable.
In a similar way Flutec® Tracers can be used to
detect leaks from other systems.
The same technology can be used to detect leaks from storage
tanks whether they are located above or below ground. The test
is conducted
by injecting small amounts of a Flutec® Tracer into
product streams and monitoring the surrounding soil for Flutec® Tracers.
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