Synthesis And Characterization Of Methacrylate Based Polymeric Additives For Crude Petroleum Oil

Abstract

Wax deposition in crude oil especially at low temperature causes serious problem during its storage and transportation since this deposited wax gradually immobilizes the oil. Thus, waxy crude oils have high pour point resulting lots of handling problems. To solve this problem, a number of flow improvers (FI) or pour point depressants (PPD) have been prepared. But still it is a challenging aspect of this research area to find out the perfect chemistry with an improved efficiency and cost effective additives over the conventional one. In this context and in continuation of our effort for the development of additive systems for lube and crude oils, homo polymer of decyl methacrylate and its copolymers with styrene and vinyl acetate at different percentage composition in the presence of benzoyl peroxide (BPO) as initiator have been prepared. All the prepared polymers are characterised by FT-IR, NMR and Gel Permeation Chromatography (GPC). The prepared additives showed excellent performance as flow improver (FI) or pour point depressant (PPD) in crude oil.

Keywords

• Crude oil
• additives
• flow improver
• wax crystal network
• homopolymer
• copolymer