Deratering

Deratering is a term with no standard definition in English-language technical literature. It appears sporadically in industry writing and is often highly context dependent. In some sources it is used as a misspelling or regional variant of derating—the practice of reducing the allowed operating limit of equipment or a component to compensate for adverse conditions such as high temperature, aging, or altitude. In other contexts, deratering is described informally as the process of removing tare, the weight of packaging, from a quantity to obtain net product weight; however, standard practice uses tare explicitly rather than deratering.

In certain niche chemical or mineral processing literatures, deratering has been used to refer to removing tar or tar-like contaminants from a feedstock, such as coal tar or bitumen-containing streams. This specialized usage is uncommon and not broadly adopted.

Because there is no widely accepted definition, the interpretation of deratering should be confirmed against the glossary or definitions provided in the specific source or industry. See also tare, derating, purification, processing.