Effect Of Side-Chain Structure Of Comb-Coplymers On Oil Flow Ability

Due to the low energy consumption than traditional heating method, chemical additives are always employed to decrease the viscosity and pour point of crude oil. To improve the flow ability of crude oil with high content of paraffin and asphaltenes, three series of comb-copolymers named MASCs, AMACs and PMACs were synthesized, which are all based on the maleic anhydride-a-olefin comb-polymers, and modified by n-octadecylamine, aniline and PEG200, respectively.1H-NMR was used to characterize their chemical structures.The effects of different side-chain of those three comb-copolymers on the flow abilities of crude oil as well as model oil were studied. The ratios of side-chain to maleic anhydride were changed to vary the ratios of polar group to non-polar group in the comb-copolymer moleculars. Rheometer was used to measure the yield stress, viscosity and gelation temperature of crude oil and model oil before and after adding comb-copolymers. MASC, AMAC and PMAC can depress the yield stress of model oil with asphaltenes. AMAC, which contents more aromatic groups showed better effect than MASC with lower content of aromatic group and PMAC with long-chain polar group. Polarizing light microscopy was used to observe the morphology of paraffin.According to the experimental results, we can get the conclusions that three series of comb-copolymers MASC, AMAC and PMAC can improve the flow ability of model oils with asphaltenes as well as crude oil effectively, and thus enhance the oil recovery yield and decrease the energy consumption during the oil transportation.