Water/crude oil removers based on alkylacrylic-carboxyalkylacrylic random copolymers of controlled molecular mass

• Main Authors: Lopez Ortega, Alfonso, Zamora Guerrero, Edgar Benedicto, Vazquez Moreno, Flavio Salvador, Alvarez Ramirez, Fernando, Flores Sandoval, Cesar Andres, Chavez Mora, Marco Antonio, Zavala Olivares, Gerardo
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 06.10.2020
• Subjects: CHEMISTRY; COMPOSITIONS BASED THEREON; CRACKING HYDROCARBON OILS; FUELS; LUBRICANTS; MACROMOLECULAR COMPOUNDS OBTAINED BY REACTIONS ONLY INVOLVINGCARBON-TO-CARBON UNSATURATED BONDS; METALLURGY; MINERAL WAXES; ORGANIC MACROMOLECULAR COMPOUNDS; PEAT; PETROLEUM, GAS OR COKE INDUSTRIES; PRODUCTION OF LIQUID HYDROCARBON MIXTURES, e.g. BY DESTRUCTIVEHYDROGENATION, OLIGOMERISATION, POLYMERISATION; RECOVERY OF HYDROCARBON OILS FROM OIL-SHALE, OIL-SAND, ORGASES; REFINING MIXTURES MAINLY CONSISTING OF HYDROCARBONS; REFORMING OF NAPHTHA; TECHNICAL GASES CONTAINING CARBON MONOXIDE; THEIR PREPARATION OR CHEMICAL WORKING-UP

A problem of the crude oil industry is the presence of large amounts of water and salts, which can not be efficiently removed by conventional dehydrating polymers. In addition, the acid stimulation operations of petroleum wells cause the chemical degradation of demulsifiers such as polyethers and phenolic resins, reducing drastically their efficiency as water and salt removers. Disclosed herein is a series of new copolymers that are combinations of an alkyl acrylate and a carboxyalkyl acrylate, synthesized by semi-continuous emulsion polymerization (under starved feed conditions), which ensures both the homogeneity of the different chains as well as the randomness of the monomers distribution. The acrylic-carboxyacrylic copolymers show good performance as water/oil emulsion breaker initiators, water droplet coalescers and clarifiers of the remaining aqueous phase. These novel acrylic-carboxyacrylic copolymers show a higher clarification capacity in comparison with acrylic copolymers [19], vinyl acrylics [12] and polyethers.