Tracing & Tagging


Flutec™ TG-Tracers share a unique set of properties which make them ideal candidates for tracing and tagging applications:

There are 22 Flutec™ Tracers with a wide variety of tracers available with boiling points from 48°C to 180°C, a wide range of experiments, including multi-component, are supported. They can be deployed, sampled and analysed with the same instrumentation simultaneously.

Flutec Tracers comparison table

Gas & Petroleum Reservoir Mapping

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.

Atmospheric Tagging

Pollution can travel hundreds of miles. 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) and SHIVA EU research program.

Emergency Simulation & Anti-Terrorist Planning

Lage scale industrial accidents and acts of terrorism, releasing harmful radioactive or chemical material to the atmosphere, can have consequences extending to hundreds and even thousands of miles. 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 recently the Urban 2000 project in Salt Lake City and City Flux in Manchester UK.

Building Ventilation Studies

Flutec™ Tracers also find application in many other consumer and industrial applications that require tracability of a substance. One such application is building ventilation studies - understanding and measuring airflow for energy conversation and indoor air quality assessments.

Cable Leak Detection

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 and allowing water into the cable causing the electricity supply to fail. Flutec™ Tracers enable leaks to be pin-pointed accurately and quickly. The dielectric fluid is tagged with a small concentration of Flutec™ Tracer that is transported along with the leaking dielectric fluid into the surrounding subsurface environment. The dissolved Flutec™ Tracer volatilises, permeates through the ground and is emitted into the air. 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.

Storage Tank Leak Detection

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.

In a similar way Flutec™ Tracers can be used to detect leaks from other systems.

And also...

There are many ways you can use Perfluorocarbon fluids for tagging and tracing, some ideas have included tracking stolen fuel, explosives and retail goods, identifying adulterated fuels, mapping weather patterns, tagging blasting caps, carbon sequestration, tagging and detection of illicit drugs, crops, chemical compounds and currency and validating subsurface barrier integrity.