Minwei Sun

New surfactant for hydrate anti-agglomeration in hydrocarbon flowlines and seabed oil capture

Anti-agglomeration is a promising solution for gas hydrate risks in deepsea hydrocarbon flowlines and oil leak captures. Currently ineffectiveness at high water to oil ratios limits such applications. We present experimental results of a new surfactant in rocking cell tests, which show high efficiency at a full range of water to oil ratios; there is no need for presence of the oil phase. We find that our surfactant at a very low concentration (0.2 wt.% of water) keeps the hydrate particles in anti-agglomeration state. We propose a mechanism different from the established water-in-oil emulsion theory in the literature that the process is effective without the oil phase. There is no need to emulsify the water phase in the oil phase for hydrate anti-agglomeration; with oil-in-water emulsion and without emulsion hydrate anti-agglomeration is presented in our research. We expect our work to pave the way for broad applications in offshore natural gas production and seabed oil capture with very small quantities of an eco-friendly surfactant.