Charles Talley II solves problems.
Talley began his conquest of solution-defying problems in the mid-1990s at Coors Brewing Company. There, he led development of a chemical-based cleaning solution for cold-filtration systems that eliminated the use of damaging caustic cleaners.
He was off and running.
He next developed a chemical formulation that solved the problem of removing tough stains and odors from bean kettles in pub kitchens that regularly cooked pintos, eliminating the need for chlorinated caustic cleaners.
After that came an elegant solution to the problem of carbon buildup that plugged deep fat fryers in large, commercial kitchens. It was then Talley recognized problems like these were not dissimilar to oilfield pipeline plugging by paraffin and asphaltenes. The biggest difference was scale.
This recognition—and our recognition of him—led to his position as our Ideal Energy Solutions, LLC Vice President of Technology. In a sense, he became the personification of the company. “Likes attract,” as they say, and Talley has been both a talent magnet and talent spotter.
Talley’s first six patents led to the seventh, the technology behind Ideal Energy Services, LLC WellRenew® cleaner, the only non-hazardous, environmentally responsible means of removing paraffin wax and asphaltenes from land-based pipelines, storage vessels, and oil refinery piping.
“This patent stands on the shoulders of the other six. I could not have done this without the knowledge I developed for the first six,” Talley said. “So essentially, it took seven patents to develop WellRenew®.”
The developmental process began in August 2014. According to Talley, the patent process can take three to four years, depending on how an examiner assesses the novelty of the new work.
“A patent examiner always has questions, and we have to provide answers to those questions,” Talley said. “The process is costly, but necessary to protect proprietary work products.” The WellRenew® patent was developed for IES, but it was Talley’s original idea.
WellRenew® is a non-caustic cleaner that floats the paraffins and asphaltenes in pipelines, allowing these unwanted inhibitors to be pumped out. Hot solvents, on the other hand, dissolve these unwanted materials, which will gel again when cooled, making them harder to remove. WellRenew® cleaner is temperature-independent and is not limited by the diameter or length of a pipeline, which makes it ideal for colder, deepwater applications. It also can be activated by seawater or freshwater, making it possible to be used in both offshore and land applications.
At moderate temperatures, paraffin displays limited solubility when in contact with most types of inorganic solvents and is virtually insoluble in aqueous solutions. Once the temperature of streaming oil falls below the cloud point, or wax-appearance temperature, the paraffin components begin to crystallize into solid wax particles. This crystallization makes buildup difficult to remove once deposited, as the sticky particles attach to each other and to pipeline walls, creating glue-like adhesion.
“With these solids, it’s just a question of density,” Talley said. “They are lighter, so we insert an aqueous solution, a solution in which water is the solvent, which dissolves the solute to create the solution. Paraffin begins to float once it is broken up. At that point, the undesirable buildup can be pumped out of a pipeline. Thereafter, the unwanted paraffin and asphaltene residual can be disposed at an approved facility.”
“There are very few people who do what I do,” Talley said. “That’s why I’m a dirt-water chemist; I just come up with stuff.”