Juneyoung Kim

Performance Evaluation of Kinetic Hydrate Inhibitors for Well Fluids Experiencing Hydrate Formation

Offshore flowlines transporting hydrocarbons have to be operated very carefully to avoid the formation of gas hydrates as they are considered one of the largest concerns for flow assurance engineers. The oil and gas industry is generally relying on chemical injection for hydrate inhibition; however hydrate blockages can occur in many different places of offshore production system due to unexpected circumstances. Once hydrate blockage formed considerable efforts are required to dissociate the hydrate via depressurization. Because residual hydrate structures known as gas hydrate precursors will be present in the aqueous phase after dissociation, the risk of hydrate re-formation becomes extremely high. Although the KHIs are becoming popular in many fields as hydrate inhibitors are considered not effective to inhibit the hydrate formation in the presence of residual hydrate structures, so that the use of KHIs for shut-in and restart operations is not recommended. In this study, new experimental procedures composed of three stages are designed to simulate the dissociation of hydrate blockages and transportation of well fluids experiencing hydrate formation. The obtained experimental results have shown that gas hydrates are rapidly re-formed when the temperature of dissociated water falls into the hydrate formation region. With an injection of KHIs before transporting the well fluids, the subcooling increased significantly indicating the possible use of KHIs for transporting the well fluids after dissociation of hydrate blockage. Moreover, the inhibition performance of KHIs is also investigated with two different gases to study the effect of gas composition. This study is confirmed that KHIs are possible candidate to prevent the hydrate re-formation in well fluids experiencing hydrate formation if the KHI is carefully evaluated.

A kinetic study of the reaction between terephthalic acid and ethylene oxide in a nonsolvent system

Abstract Kinetics of the reaction between terephathalic acid and ethylene oxide, catalysed by triethylamine, was studied in a high-pressure reactor without using solvent. This reaction was carried out at a temperature range of 80–100°C and at a pressure range of 10–15 Kg/cm 2 beyond the corresponding vapor pressure of ethylene oxide. Effects of temperature, catalyst concentration, mole ratio of ethylene oxide to terephthalic acid, particle size of terephthalic acid, pK value of the tertiary amine and stirrer speed were experimentally investigated on the yield of bis(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate and reaction rates. It was found that the bulk reaction of terephthalic acid with ethylene oxide occurred in the liquid phase. Based on experimental results a reaction mechanism to synthesize bis(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate from terephthalic acid and ethylene oxide in a nonsolvent system was proposed, and rate constants were obtained with a model based on this proposed reaction mechanism. The activation energy of the reaction was found to be between 3.67–8.28 kcal/mole in the temperature range of 80–95°C.