Novel Eco-Friendly Kinetic Hydrate Inhibitors

Abstract

Amid concerns over negative the environmental impacts of offshore chemicals, Baker Hughes explored new chemistries to develop environmentally friendly kinetic hydrate inhibitors (KHI). Our efforts were focused on improving biodegradability and toxicity of KHIs to meet environmental protection requirements, as well as mitigating challenges in field applications. A novel KHI design with branched polymers containing sugar alcohol ester groups as linkages, was proposed and synthesized. The new KHI polymer demonstrated > 20% biodegradability and >100 mg/L toxicity to seawater algae, and it also exhibited competitive or even better KHI performance to traditional non-biodegradable KHI products. Additionally, new KHI showed improved stability in water/brine at elevated temperatures as compared to traditional KHI products, which might mitigate concerns on polymer deposition at high temperatures.