Class of Kinetic Hydrate Inhibitors with Good Biodegradability

Abstract

Kinetic hydrate inhibitors have been used successfully in the field for about the last 13 years to prevent gas hydrate formation mostly in gas-and oilfield production lines. They work by delaying the nucleation and often also the growth of gas hydrate crystals for periods of time dependent upon the subcooling in the system. Current commercial kinetic hydrate inhibitors are used for field applications where the subcooling is as high as about 10°C. In the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, very few of the commercial kinetic hydrate inhibitors are available for use offshore because of poor environmental properties usually related to biodegradability. We have designed and synthesized a class of kinetic hydrate inhibitor, which appears to show good biodegradability (OECD306, >20% in 28 days). Inhibitor performance tests have been carried out in stirred autoclaves (titanium and sapphire) using a natural gas blend and saline water giving structure II hydrates. In the presence of solvents, we have obtained a fairly good performance of the new inhibitors but a little lower than that of a current commercial inhibitor Luvicap 55W.

An investigation into the kinetic hydrate inhibitor properties of two imidazolium-based ionic liquids on Structure II gas hydrate

“…Kinetic hydrate inhibitors (KHIs) are a class of low dosage hydrate inhibitor that have been used in the oil industry since about 1995 to prevent plugging of oil, condensate and gas production pipelines with gas hydrates (Sloan and Koh, 2008;Kelland, 2006Kelland, , 2009.…”

Preparation of aqueous soluble polyamides from renewable succinic acid and citric acid as a new approach to design bio‐inspired polymers

“…They have also been shown to protect against calcium carbonate or barium sulfate scale formation in oilfields. [24][25][26][27] PASP and aspartic acid oligomers resemble functional domains of aspartic acid-rich proteins and provide valuable models for understanding how these proteins regulate mineralization in nature or in vivo.…”

Homo- and Copolymers of N-Acryloylpyrrolidine and N-Vinylpyrrolidone as Kinetic Inhibitors of Hydrate Formation

“…There are already commercial hydrate inhibitors, for example, Luvicap 55W (BASF), which is the copolymer of N-vinylpyrrolidone and N-vinylcaprolactam in 1:1 ratio of units [2]. The induction period for a 0.5 wt.…”

“…The inhibiting properties of high-molecular-weight compounds (MMC) have been investigated in [2,[4][5][6]. A new class of KHI whose active base is polyaspartamides obtained by ring-opening in polysuccinimide in reacting with alkylamines was developed in [2].…”

“…A new class of KHI whose active base is polyaspartamides obtained by ring-opening in polysuccinimide in reacting with alkylamines was developed in [2]. It was found that polyaspartamide with an isobutyl:methyl radical molar ratio of 3:1 is most effective as a KHI.…”