If you work in the natural gas industry or are an industrial user of natural gas, water dewpoint is not only a quality measurement but also a big concern. Water condensate presents serious challenges and issues for your process. It is highly corrosive and will form hydrates, which are ice-like solid molecules that can block the flow of gas in pipelines. In cold weather, it will also freeze reducing the pipe pressure.

If you’re a user of moisture analyzers, you’ve probably experienced challenges in performing a quick, accurate measurement using a portable instrument.  Portable moisture analyzers are typically used to verify the moisture reading of a fixed-installation instrument or to conduct spot-sampling measurements at remote sites which lack a permanently installed device.  In my experience performing portable measurements, I’ve seen several common obstacles a user may encounter:

Trace moisture measurements in gas applications often appear to be simple and straight forward because the theory is relatively well understood; however, when the analyzer system is in service and we see unexpected measurement results, the head scratching begins.

Electrically everything appears to be correct so we assume the probe/sensor must be out of specification, right???