For this paper a laboratory simulation of the crude unit overhead corrosion was conducted. The main variable that impacts the corrosion rates for pipes, heat exchangers, and drums that compound the overhead system is pH. To control this pH many companies use different kinds of neutralizers, trying to keep in an optimum range, determined for each unit, according to their own characteristics. For this study an apparatus that simulate the evaporation and subsequent condensation of a solution with hydrochloric acid and other with neutralizer, with five carbon steel coupons analyzed by metal mass-loss was used. To compare to field practices, three kinds of neutralizer solutions were used. It was possible to observe differences between the pH profiles along condensation, which certainly influences the corrosion rate from the first condensed solution until the last one. It can be compared with the process at the atmospheric tower, from the overhead pipe, passing by the condenser until the drum that accumulates sour water at the end. In this last one the pH is usually measured, but it cannot represent what we could observe with this laboratory apparatus, that the first solution condensed is the worst for corrosion, and that there is a direct relationship between them.
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