Designing Kinetic Hydrate Inhibitors-Eight Projects With Only Partial Success, But Some Lessons Learnt

摘要

In our quest to develop new and improved kinetic hydrate inhibitors (KHIs) for practical use in the oil and gas industry, we have carried out a number of projects that, in our hands, proved ultimately unsuccessful. However, as with most laboratory research projects, useful data has been obtained and some important lessons have been learned. These lessons can be helpful in several ways. First, to understand the scope and limitations of chemicals that could be used as KHIs. Second, to highlight mechanistic aspects of KHI theory. Finally, the work may help inspire others to develop related but more successful research projects. In this article we present the results of eight partially successful KHI research projects and explain why each of these projects was undertaken and the results obtained. Seven of the projects concern new classes of polymers, and the other project describes what we hoped was a new class of nonpolymeric synergists for KHI polymers, but instead gave the opposite effect. All new KHI products were investigated for their performance in high pressure multiple steel rocking cells using a Structure II-forming gas mixture.