Synthesis Of Comb Bipolymers And Their Pour Point Depressing Properties

With the rapid development of modern industry, as an important part of energy, crude oil is still the restricted factor on its growing road. During the1970s, there have occurred two oil crises, which caused great shock in the world. After the crisis, countries around the world such as the United States and other big oil consumers took their great effort in oil exploration storage and transportation. As the bright younger generation in industrial development, China now also actively expands overseas oil purchasing strategy. At present, most of the countries transport crude oil by pipeline. Because of high pour point, there are many heating and pumping stations during the transport process, which would greatly increase the energy consumption of oil transportation. Therefore, how to effectively reduce the pour point of crude oil has become a common international research topic.In this paper, one kind of comb polymer NMAMA was synthesized by MAMA (maleic anhydride and methyl methacrylate) and oil amine. It is shown that system molecules had a certain aggregation after the long time dynamical simulation. The main driving force for the aggregation of these compounds was π bonds and hydrogen bonds. Then, the properties of polymers’ energy were studied during the process of molecular dynamical simulation. It was showen that, potential energy gradually increased to a stable value; however, the non-bond energy was lower and did not change significantly. To sum up, molecules had a certain aggregation after the long time dynamical simulation; the potential energy gradually increased to a stable value, structures became steady. So the polymers have pour point depressing properties theoretically.By using maleic anhydride and methyl acrylate as raw materials, a bipolymer maleic anhydride-methyl acrylate (MAMA) was synthesized by molecular design. And SMA was also synthesized by maleic anhydride and styrene. MAMA and SMA further reacted with oleylamine or octadecyl alcohol to generate four comb polymers called Oleamide-MAMA (NMAMA), Octadecanol-MAMA (OMAMA), Oleamide-SMA (NSMA) and Octadecanol-SMA (OSMA) respectively. The structure of all the polymers was confirmed by the infrared spectral analysis (IR), gel permeation chromatography analysis (GPC) and differential scanning Calorimeter (DSC). Moreover, the pour point depressing (PPD) properties of these comb polymers was examined experimentally. Results showed that, besides the molecular weight and concentration of the polymers, the length of side chains and the number of functional groups also had great influence on the pour point depressing performance. The π bonds and hydrogen bonds between depressants were found to be key factors for improving the pour point depressing properties. These results suggest that both OMAMA and NMAMA are potential pour point depressing material in industry.