The effect of molecular weight of waterborne polyurethanes on kinetic hydrate inhibition

Abstract

© 2019, International Multidisciplinary Scientific Geoconference. All rights reserved. The oil and gas industry faces problems such as hydrates, waxes, corrosion and asphaltenes, which among them the formation of hydrates is one of the most serious problems.Gas hydrates include water and light gas molecules and the form at low temperatures and high pressures, as these conditions are available inside the oil and gas pipelines. They are responsible for the blockage of flow lines, valves and well heads, thereby causing great loss of production and other severe safety hazards to the oil and gas industry. Kinetic hydrate inhibitors (KHIs) are water-soluble polymers that are used to prevent gas hydrate blockages and they have been used in the field successfully. Recently, we introduced waterborne polyurethanes as a promising KHI. Here we are going to investigate the effect of molecular weight of waterborne polyurethane on inhibition performance. A high-pressure autoclave cell was used to evaluate the hydrate inhibition performances of waterborne polyurethanes. We checked the performance of inhibitors through the time when hydrate crystals are initially observed by naked eyes, and the time when rapid and continuous dropping of system pressure begins. The results revealed that the best performance of these inhibitors was achieved for the low molecular waterborne polyurethane.