A Study On Different Water Cuts And Concentration Of Salts On Hydrate Formation And Effect Of Ionic Liquids Inhibitors On Gas Hydrate By Using Dsc Technique

• Main Author: Mohamad Hafiz Bin Baharudin, Mohamad Hafiz
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Teknologi Petronas 2011
• Subjects: TP Chemical technology
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/380/1/FYP_latest.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/380/
• Institution: Universiti Teknologi Petronas

Gas hydrate are solid structures formed from water and gas under low temperature and high pressure conditions. It is well known in the oil and gas industry, because of its ability to plug pipelines and might lead to severe safety and economic hazards. Hydrate inhibitors are widely used in oil and gas industry to inhibit gas hydrate formation in pipelines. In industry, there are three types of inhibitors available, thermodynamic, kinetic and anti-agglomerant. Thermodynamic inhibitors shift the HLVE curve to lower temperature and higher pressure, thus avoid hydrate formation but it need to be used at higher concentration up to 50 wt% which lead to high cost of operational. Kinetic inhibitors do not shift the HLVE curve but retard the hydrate formation by slowing down the nucleation and the growth rates. Anti-agglomerants are another class of low dosage inhibitors. They act by preventing hydrate crystals from agglomerating into hydrate plugs and do not prevent hydrate crystal formation. Currently, ionic liquids are believed to be one of the inhibitors that act as dual function inhibitor, thermo-kinetic behaviour. To demonstrate the feasibility and principles for managing gas hydrate risks, the lowest hydrate formation temperature must be find. It have been tested from different water cut values, 15%, 30% and 45% and different concentration of salts, 0, 300 and 500 ppt. From this studies ( water cut and concentration of salt), the lowest hydrate formation temperature are chosen. The performance of four imidazolium-based ionic liquids as a new class of gas hydrate inhibitors has been investigated. Their effect on hydrate formation temperature and induction time are measured in a differential scanning calorimeter. It is found that these ionic liquids, due to their strong electrostatic charges and hydrogen bond with water could shift the hydrate formation temperature to a lower temperature and at the same time, retard the hydrate formation by slowing down the hydrate nucleation rate. This project is expected to make this type of inhibitors perform effectively than the existing inhibitors.