Temperature Augmented Visual Method for Initial Screening of Hydrate Inhibitors
Department of Petroleum Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines),
Dhanbad
826004 - India
* Corresponding author e-mail: vikas.ismpe@hotmail.com
Received:
1
May
2017
Accepted:
24
November
2017
The formation of gas hydrates in oil & gas pipelines and drilling fluid flow lines is a major issue in the petroleum industry. Gas hydrate inhibitors are normally used to inhibit the formation of gas hydrates in the pipelines/flowlines. Initial screening of hydrate inhibitors and AntiAgglomerants (AA) requires a safe and economical experimental setup/method. Conventional visual method was used for initial screening of hydrate inhibitors in many researches. Some researchers also suggested modified visual methods, but all of them lacks accurate measurement of induction time and found to be inappropriate for experimental solutions like drilling mud, etc. In this work, a temperature augmented visual method was presented which can be used in academic research laboratories for study and initial screening of hydrate inhibitors. This method is capable of parallel screening of inhibitors and determines hydrate induction time precisely. Experiments were conducted to determine the hydrate induction time of different inhibitors using augmented method and compared with conventional visual method. The developed method found to be more precise in determining the induction time of hydrates in all types of experimental solutions.
© T. Saikia and V. Mahto, published by IFP Energies nouvelles, 2018
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
