Thermochem, Inc

Overview

Thermochem provides chemical engineering, laboratory analysis, geochemistry and field testing services and products to a wide range of energy industries. From base operations in the Western USA and South East Asia, Thermochem has served oil and gas, power generation and renewable energy companies for 25 years. The company’s full-time staff consists of engineers, chemists, geologists, and computer programmers with extensive experience in chemical process engineering, chemical modeling, analytical chemistry, geochemistry, electronics, CADD design and manufacturing. The primary focus of Thermochem is to protect the long-term assets of our clients and to increase the efficiency of their operations through consulting and testing services, and innovative chemical process development, designed to optimize energy extraction and power generation operations.

Research

Thermochem conducts research under US Department of Energy (DOE) and California Energy Commission (CEC) grant programs for the development of improved power conversion and enhanced resource recovery technologies. These projects are conducted under grants issued directly to Thermochem and through collaboration with the National Energy Labs at Berkeley (LBL), Livermore (LLNL), Brookhaven (BNL), Idaho (INEEL), the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) in Colorado and Sandia National Lab (SNL) in New Mexico. The R&D projects include advanced steam purification technology for removal of corrosive vapors from superheated steam, development of laser-based instrumentation for steam quality and purity, fouling mitigation for brine heat exchangers, evaluations of new polymer coatings for steel, high-temperature deep wellbore logging and fluid sampling tools, and vapor/liquid reservoir tracer research.

Standards

The president of Thermochem, Paul N. Hirtz, is also the chairman of ASTM committee E44.15 which provides recommended practices and develops standards for technical activities associated with geothermal resource exploration and development. This scope includes: exploration techniques; production equipment design, specification and testing; resource and production measurements (downhole, surface and power plant); material selection and corrosion, erosion, and material coatings testing; evaluation and treatment of geothermal wastes. ASTM committee E44.15 also provides recommended practices and develops standards to be used in the exploitation of geothermal fluid and earth heat. All aspects of electric power generate from geothermal resources including steam, two-phase, flash and organic rankine cycle (binary) power general systems and associated cascade uses of reject heat or fluids are considered for standardization, including applications involving earth-coupled heat pumps, direct-use heating and cooling, industrial processing, greenhouses, agriculture, aquaculture and mineral extraction. The ASTM standard E 1675 (two-phase fluid sampling) was derived from internal Thermochem procedures developed over many years and drafted by Mr. Hirtz into a published ASTM standard practice. New ASTM standards for steam purity and quality measurement are currently in progress. In addition to the active development of ASTM standards, Mr. Hirtz is an editorial board member for the Geoscience journal Geothermics. Mr. Hirtz and his staff have published over 25 technical papers related to the energy industry over the past 25 years.

Technology and Instrumentation

Thermochem developed a two-phase on-line flow measurement technology for true mass flow rate measurement of steam and water phases for steam qualities from 1 to 99%. Thermochem provides this measurement service, manufactures and sells the equipment, and has provided training and consultation to clients from Iceland to Indonesia for over 12 years. This technology is also applicable to cooling water flow measurement in fossil-fuel and nuclear power plants, any single-phase or two-phase steam/water flow, and multi-phase gas / hydrocarbon / water production from oil and gas wells.

Thermochem has greatly improved on the original Ellison throttling calorimeter and the ASTM isokinetic steam sampling probe for the on-line measurement of trace levels of moisture in steam. Thermochem manufactures an ultra-low heat loss calorimeter using vacuum Dewar technology, and a true isokinetic sampling probe that minimizes flow disturbances and impurity losses.

Thermochem has developed advanced downhole logging and fluid sampling tools for geothermal, oil and gas wells. These tools can be used at temperatures over 350 °C to log pressure, temperature, flow and fluid conductivity. Samples of steam, hydrocarbon, and water can be collected under single or multi-phase conditions. An integral total-heat calorimeter allows the collection of known quantities of steam and water under two-phase flow conditions for phase reconstruction of analytical results.

Our Facilities

Thermochem maintains two analytical laboratories (USA and Indonesia) where samples from around the world are shipped for analysis. Both facilities provide a base for field testing activities, with storage of test equipment, instrumentation, safety gear, and spare parts. These facilities also maintain on-site temperature, pressure and flow calibration instrumentation.

The USA facility includes manufacturing and assembly capabilities for delicate instrumentation and electronics. Mass flow controllers for gas, steam and liquid are used for primary flow calibration and testing of field equipment and on-line monitors. A steam generator facility is also maintained to provide saturated and superheated steam for calibration and testing. Large quantities of liquid nitrogen are stored on-site in bulk containers, as well as numerous primary standard calibration gases. Precision machining and welding is performed off-site at local high-tech manufacturing companies in the Silicon Valley area. All design and drafting is by on-site CAD, and the drawing files are sent electronically to the local manufacturers. Many components are made by automated machines that read these CAD files directly.

Laboratory and Field Equipment

Thermochem laboratories (USA and Indonesia) maintain the following specialized equipment: Laboratory Analysis Instrumentation

• Varian Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer
• Perkin Elmer ICP-OES Optima 7000DV
• HACH Spectrophotometer
• FIAlab Flow Injection Analysis System
• Total Inorganic Carbon NDIR Flow Injection Analysis System
• Waters 1525/717 HPLC with Gradient Pump and Autosampler
• Waters 2475 Variable Wavelength Fluorescence Detector
• Alcott 718 HPLC Autosampler
• Dionex 4500; HPLC with Gradient Pump Module
• Dionex Pulsed Electrochemical Detector, series 4500i
• Dionex Variable Wavelength UV/Vis Detector, series 4500i
• Dionex ASM-3 Autosampler
• Dionex AI-450 Chromatography Data Stations
• Hitachi F-2000 Spectrofluorometer 1 cm discrete sample cell, flow analysis cell
• Oasis HLB 6CC LP extraction station with cartridges
• Dionex Omni Pac PAX-100 ion-exchange column for FBA analysis
• Waters BetaBasic C-18 HPLC column, BetaBasic C-18 guard column for NSA analysis
• Hewlett Packard 5890 Gas Chromatographs
• Flame Ionization Detectors
• Thermal Conductivity Detectors
• Hewlett Packard Electron Capture Detector
• O-I 4420 Electrolytic Conductivity Detector
• HNU PI-52 Photoionization Detector
• Tekmar 3100 Purge and Trap Concentrator

Field Instrumentation, Tracer Injection and Sampling Equipment

• Handheld Fluorometers
• On-line Fluorometers
• Custom Portable Field GC with Electron Capture Detector
• MicroMod MFC Gas Mass Flow Controller
• MicroMod LDS Liquid Tracer Delivery System
• High-Volume Liquid Tracer Injection Skid, 1200 liter tank, 50 lpm pump
• High-Pressure Gas Tracer Delivery Units, Liquefied-gas pumps, 120 bar
• High-Pressure Liquid Tracer Delivery Units, 100 bar, 1 lpm pump
• Two-Phase Sampling Separators, Condensers, Coolers per ASTM E-1675
• Retractable Traversing Isokinetic Sampling Probes
• NIST-traceable Pressure and Temperature Instrumentation
• NIST-traceable Dry Gas Flow Calibrators and Volume Meters

Thermochem currently employs 27 people, including highly qualified scientists with extensive energy project experience. Thermochem has field testing personnel with experience in chemical testing services at well sites, drilling rigs, power plants and remote exploration areas. Thermochem maintains two analytical laboratories (USA and Indonesia) where samples from around the world are shipped for analysis. Both facilities provide a base for field testing activities, with test equipment, instrumentation, safety gear, and spare parts. These facilities also maintain on-site temperature, pressure and flow calibration instrumentation.

President

Paul Hirtz, is the President of Thermochem, Inc. Paul has worked as a consultant and researcher for the energy industry for the past 25 years. He holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Sonoma State University. Paul is the chairman of ASTM committees E44.15 and E44.40 which develop and standardize chemical testing procedures and materials selection for the energy industry. Paul is an editorial board member for the Geoscience journal Geothermics, and board member of the Geothermal Resource Council. He has published over 25 technical papers related to exploring issues specific to the energy industry, and has obtained patents and exclusive license agreements on several instruments and chemical processes now in use.

Paul is specialized in chemical computer modeling of water and gas chemistry for chemical engineering process studies. He has extensive experience in pilot-plant and full-scale testing for the evaluation and development of new chemical processes. Paul has developed instrumentation and chemical processes such as H2S abatement, scale control, continuous non-condensable gas monitors, two-phase high-temperature wellbore samplers, corrosion mitigation systems, on-line steam quality monitors using conventional and laser-based technology, and the measurement of two-phase flow using chemical tracers.

The corrosion mitigation process (CMF) currently used at The Geysers was first designed and put into commercial service by Paul at the Aidlin Project for Mission Power Corporation in 1989. Subsequently he has developed a new process under DOE and CEC funding, termed Dry Steam Scrubbing (DSS), that will replace the CMF process for direct HCl removal from superheated steam. The Tracer Flow Test (TFT) technique, developed by Paul in 1992, is the primary standard for measuring two-phase flow in geothermal fields worldwide. The steam purity and quality monitoring equipment developed by Paul is also the standard in power plants, and may soon be replaced by a new generation of laser-based fiber optic instruments that are in the testing stage now. As President of Thermochem, Paul continues to direct major research projects and consulting projects for a wide spectrum of energy industries.

Senior Consulting Geochemist

Philip Molling is the senior consulting geochemist to Thermochem, Inc. He has a PhD in Geochemistry from Johns Hopkins University , MS in Economic Geology from Miami University (Ohio) and a BS in Geology from Marietta College. Phil is recently retired from Unocal Geothermal after 16 years and had worked as an exploration/mining economic geologist for Unocal Molycorp for the previous 8 years. His geothermal activities included exploration/assessment of prospects in Sumatra, Central America and South America. He was the primary geochemist at The Geysers for 3 years where he developed a generation/prediction model of HCl production along with other geochemists. He was the chief architect of the most recent geochemical conceptual models for the Tiwi, Mak-Ban (Bulalo), Awibengkok (Salak) and the Wayang Windu geothermal fields. As a development geochemist/geologist for these fields, he helped provide targets for make-up drilling, identify and predict injectate and groundwater breakthrough, develop injection strategies, and finally he developed models to predict/project NCG production.

Working for Unocal Geothermal provided him access to the world’s largest geochemical geothermal database. This has allowed him to perform geochemical analog studies on almost all geothermal fields in the world. He is well-versed in geochemical modeling tools: CHILLER, HCh and Geochemist’s Workbench, as well as, the reactive transport modeling tool, TOUGHREACT.

Phil is currently consulting in the geothermal industry for Thermochem and has recently finished conceptual modeling studies of Geothermal Fields in Kenya and the western USA.

Senior Chemist

Russell Kunzman is the Senior Chemist for Thermochem, Inc. Russell holds a B.A. in Chemistry from Sonoma State University. He has been with Thermochem for over 20 years, initially as a field chemist, Information Technology manager, Laboratory Director and finally Senior Research Chemist. Mr. Kunzman was previously an analytical chemist with Anatec Laboratories, field instrument specialist with Exlog/Smith Geothermal Division from 1984-1985.

Russell’s analytical expertise is in trace metals analysis by atomic absorption and emission spectroscopy on solid and aqueous samples, and analysis fixed gases, trace hydrocarbon, and sulfur gases by gas chromatography utilizing TCD, FID, PID, ECD, and SCD detectors. He has extensive experience in the development of field methods and laboratories for on-site analysis at power plants.

Russell has developed chemical computer modeling software for the study of vapor/liquid gas and electrolyte reactions. He developed programs for laboratory and field data reduction, many of which are included with products sold by Thermochem. He also developed programs using relational database to enhance quality control by comparison of new data to existing historical data to detect trends in long term monitoring projects. Mr. Kunzman is responsible for the development of instrumentation and software to collect data from field continuous chemical monitors, steam quality systems and down-hole logging sampling tools.

As Senior Chemist at Thermochem, Mr. Kunzman is responsible for all the specialized analytical services that Thermochem offers the energy industry. He maintains the high quality control standards that Thermochem is known for, as evidenced by long-term analytical contracts with major oil companies such as Unocal and Chevron, and top performance in regular round-robin lab comparison studies.

Field Services and Product Manager

Matt Broaddus is the Field Services and Product Manager for Thermochem, Inc. Matt holds a B.S. degree in Biochemistry from University of California, Davis. Matt started with Thermochem in 1994. He was originally hired as a chemist with primary duties in elemental analysis by FAA, GFAA, and VGAA analysis and gas chromatography using ECD, TCD, PID, and FID detectors. His current analytical expertise is in the development of HPLC analysis methods for reservoir tracers used in geothermal injection studies and oil field water flood tracer tests.

Matt became Laboratory Director for PT. Thermochem Indonesia in 1997, where he started-up the new facility and developed all analysis and data reporting procedures. Matt hired, trained, and supervised 6 Indonesian employees. He directed all laboratory testing and field services at multiple geothermal and oil and gas project sites within Indonesia.

Matt has previous experience as a chemist with the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Agency, National Environmental Technology Center. He was involved in the development and implementation of hazardous materials remediation procedures, and characterization of environmental contaminant transport.

As Field Services Manager for Thermochem, Matt provides planning and on-site supervision of field sampling, multi-phase flow measurement and pilot-plant testing projects worldwide, including Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Guatemala, New Zealand and the USA. He also has continued responsibility for operations at PT. Thermochem Indonesia. As Product Manager, Matt ensures that specialty test instrumentation manufactured by Thermochem meets stringent QC requirements, and incorporates the latest available technology to maintain these products as robust and cost-effective instruments for use in harsh environments. He is also responsible for the on-site training and the maintenance for these products.

Resources

Thermochem provides chemical engineering, laboratory analysis, geochemistry and field testing services and products to a wide range of energy industries. From base operations in the Western USA and South East Asia, Thermochem has served oil and gas, power generation and renewable energy companies for 25 years.

The company’s full-time staff consists of engineers, chemists, geologists, and computer programmers with extensive experience in chemical process engineering, chemical modeling, analytical chemistry, geochemistry, electronics, CADD design and manufacturing.

The primary focus of Thermochem is to protect the long-term assets of our clients and to increase the efficiency of their operations through consulting and testing services, and innovative chemical process development, designed to optimize energy extraction and power generation operations.