In the work described in this paper, the rheological behavior of hydrate suspensions in an asphaltic crude oil was studied. A P‐T cell adapted to operate as a double cylinder configuration rheometer was used. The results obtained show that the hydrate suspensions studied exhibit shear thinning behavior and thixotropy. This behavior is more visible in suspensions with higher particle content and seems to be related to colloidal interactions between the crystals, which causes aggregation between crystals at low shear rates.
Evaluation of kinetic hydrate inhibitors (KHIs) in laboratory high-pressure cells generally yields scattered results. In this work we propose a procedure that consists of characterizing the effectiveness of KHI on second hydrate formation. This procedure limits the stochastic character of hydrate crystallization using the persistence of precursory hydrate structures in water that has previously experienced hydrate formation and decomposition. It is shown that the presence of these precursors strongly increases the repeatability of results compared with systems containing "fresh water" and allows unambiguous discrimination between blank (uninhibited system) and KHI tests.
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