Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 21 views

    NalcoNleanNCorPart1 Mar07corrosion Inhibitor

    Uploaded by

    1mmahoney
    Nalco has developed a new corrosion inhibitor and cleaner called Clean n Cor that can both remove oily sludge deposits from pipelines and form a protective barrier against corrosion. Laboratory tests showed it was highly effective at removing sludge, dispersing oil into the water phase at a much faster rate than other inhibitors tested. It also performed well in corrosion tests and was estimated to be at least 10% more cost effective than comparable products for sludge removal. The new formulation uses surfactants that greatly lower the interfacial tension between oil and water, enabling it to efficiently remove hydrocarbon deposits from pipelines.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    NalcoNleanNCorPart1 Mar07corrosion Inhibitor

    Uploaded by

    1mmahoney
    21 views3 pages
    Nalco has developed a new corrosion inhibitor and cleaner called Clean n Cor that can both remove oily sludge deposits from pipelines and form a protective barrier against corrosion. Laboratory tests showed it was highly effective at removing sludge, dispersing oil into the water phase at a much faster rate than other inhibitors tested. It also performed well in corrosion tests and was estimated to be at least 10% more cost effective than comparable products for sludge removal. The new formulation uses surfactants that greatly lower the interfacial tension between oil and water, enabling it to efficiently remove hydrocarbon deposits from pipelines.

    Original Description:

    Nalco Clean n Cor corrosion inhibitor addresses solid buildup problem

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Nalco has developed a new corrosion inhibitor and cleaner called Clean n Cor that can both remove oily sludge deposits from pipelines and form a protective barrier against corrosion. Laboratory tests showed it was highly effective at removing sludge, dispersing oil into the water phase at a much faster rate than other inhibitors tested. It also performed well in corrosion tests and was estimated to be at least 10% more cost effective than comparable products for sludge removal. The new formulation uses surfactants that greatly lower the interfacial tension between oil and water, enabling it to efficiently remove hydrocarbon deposits from pipelines.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    21 views3 pages

    NalcoNleanNCorPart1 Mar07corrosion Inhibitor

    Uploaded by

    1mmahoney
    Nalco has developed a new corrosion inhibitor and cleaner called Clean n Cor that can both remove oily sludge deposits from pipelines and form a protective barrier against corrosion. Laboratory tests showed it was highly effective at removing sludge, dispersing oil into the water phase at a much faster rate than other inhibitors tested. It also performed well in corrosion tests and was estimated to be at least 10% more cost effective than comparable products for sludge removal. The new formulation uses surfactants that greatly lower the interfacial tension between oil and water, enabling it to efficiently remove hydrocarbon deposits from pipelines.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 3

    SPE Updates Archive Corrosion inhibitor and cleaner, rolled into one Page 1 of 5

    SPE Updates Single Post


    Corrosion inhibitor and cleaner, rolled into one

    Wednesday, 25 April 2007

    While injecting corrosion inhibitors into production fluids can be an extremely cost-effective means of mitigating
    corrosion in carbon steel pipelines, the inhibitors are worthless if they cannot reach the pipe wall. This is a particular
    problem in production pipelines containing built-up oily solids that prevent even the best inhibitor from reaching the wall.
    The Energy Services Division of Nalco Company claims to have developed a novel solution to this problem with the
    introduction of Clean n Cor, a technology specifically developed to both remove oily sludge deposits and form a
    protective barrier against corrosion.

    Dr. David Horsup, R&D Manager for the Asset Integrity and Production Maximization group for Nalco, recently
    explained the importance of keeping production equipment clean and the process used to develop Clean n Cor.

    While the thickness of oily sludge in a pipeline may range from only a few millimeters to several centimeters, the
    outcome is the same: the sludge may adsorb significant quantities of corrosion inhibitor, prevent the inhibitor from
    reaching the pipe wall, and in addition may act as an ideal incubator for bacteria to grow, Horsup said. This bacteria
    typically produces very corrosive byproducts during its metabolic cycle, causing the well known and potentially
    aggressive process of microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC).

    Sludge buildup poses an additional challenge in those fields using water injection wells to maintain production. Sludge
    may find its way through the separator and into the water injection line, where it may plug filters or collect down-hole in
    the formation, resulting in lower water injection rates, and subsequent lower production rates as well.

    Instead of investing a great deal of time and resources into developing a new cleaner/corrosion inhibitor package, why not
    look at more conventional methods of keeping the line clean? Clearly the best approach would be to prevent the
    problematic components in the production fluids from depositing within the pipe, says Horsup. While this can be
    achieved to some extent through careful management of the production process, complete control can rarely be achieved.

    The resulting deposits then have to be removed physically from the pipeline, typically through maintenance pigging
    operations. However, in many fields with an older infrastructure, pig launchers and receivers may not be installed, and
    even if they are, the pipe configuration may have changed such that youre faced with pipe of varying diameter along the
    same line, Horsup says. It is often very difficult, if not impossible, to pig a line like that. Additionally, pigging
    operations can result in process upsets, lost production, significant opex costs and EH&S challenges.

    This reality forced Horsup and his colleagues at Nalco to initiate a thorough research effort aimed at understanding the
    factors involved in successfully removing sludge by chemical means, and then developing a formulation that could
    effectively remove this sludge while also mitigating aggressive corrosion.

    A few field operators in North America with this specific problem of corrosion under sludge were more than happy to
    provide assistance with the research effort. Says Horsup: We received a sample of sludge from one customers produced
    water line following a maintenance pigging run and analyzed it compositionally. We discovered that the majority (40%)
    of the sludge was hydrocarbon, which was essentially the glue holding the solids in the sludge together. These solids
    included sand, clays, corrosion byproducts and biomass, all present on the order of 10-15% of the total mass.

    http://updates.spe.org/index.php/2007/04/25/corrosion-inhibitor-and-cleaner-rolled-into-one/1/ 5/13/2007
    SPE Updates Archive Corrosion inhibitor and cleaner, rolled into one Page 2 of 5
    Product development starts at the fundamentals

    By focusing on a way to desorb or remove the hydrocarbon glue, the remaining solids should be carried off the surface
    as well, allowing the inhibitor to reach the pipe wall. To investigate this, Horsup drew upon his background in interfacial
    phenomena and surfactants to look at the cleaning effect of different inhibitors. We solicited the help of Timothy
    Dunstan and Professor John Clint in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Hull, UK to perform a series of
    interfacial property studies on various inhibitor actives in the presence of field brines and crude oil samples. Most of the
    inhibitor actives selected for study were well-established actives in Nalcos arsenal, as well as a new, patented modified
    fatty amine.

    One set of studies was a measurement of the interfacial tension between crude oil and water (ow), in the presence of the
    inhibitor actives at various concentrations. Corrosion inhibitors are surface-active molecules, which means that they
    adsorb at surfaces or interfaces, in this case the interface between the oil and water, explains Horsup. Once adsorbed,
    the inhibitors will lower the tension between the oil and water, and as the inhibitor concentration is increased, a point is
    reached where the interfacial tension plateaus. At this concentration, if the interfacial tension is low enough, the inhibitor
    will allow oil droplets to easily be removed from a solid surface and dispersed in the water phase. The best actives reach
    this minimum in interfacial tension at low dosages (low ppm range).

    The results of these tests demonstrated that the modified fatty amine provided the lowest ow at the lowest dosage,
    indicating that it would likely be the most cost-effective active for removing sludge from a pipe surface. This active was
    combined with other proven inhibitor actives into a new formulation, which also demonstrated the ability to significantly
    lower ow at very low dosages.

    The interfacial property data was a useful starting point, and suggested that the formulation would be a cost-effective
    inhibitor package for removing oily deposits from a pipeline. However, as Horsup pointed out, We then wanted to more
    directly observe how effective this new formulation would be at removing sludge before we moved it to the field.

    New lab test studies real-time sludge removal

    Nalco and the University of Hull collaborated to build a test cell that would measure sludge removal in a way that
    mimicked real-world conditions. This test loop incorporated a clear glass cell containing a freshly polished 1018 carbon
    steel coupon at the base, explained Horsup. A known mass of sludge (obtained from a pigging operation) was applied to
    the surface of the coupon, which was then placed in the glass test cell.

    We then introduced a formulation at different dosages into the test loop to see how effective it would be at removing the
    sludge, Horsup says. The flow rate through the loop was kept very low, on the order of 0.33 L/min (corresponding to a
    linear velocity of 0.8 m/min), because we wanted to minimize turbulence effects and only study the effect of the inhibitor
    package on sludge removal.

    http://updates.spe.org/index.php/2007/04/25/corrosion-inhibitor-and-cleaner-rolled-into-one/1/ 5/13/2007
    SPE Updates Archive Corrosion inhibitor and cleaner, rolled into one Page 3 of 5
    A video camera continuously monitored the sludge/coupon specimen to record how the sludge surface changed over time,
    and online measurements of water turbidity over time were performed to determine how much oil was present in the
    water. Each test ran for two hours, after which time the coupon was removed from the cell, dried and reweighed to
    determine how much sludge was left.

    In one set of tests, we compared the new formulation with a best-in-class corrosion inhibitor, both injected at 80 ppm.
    With the new formulation, the sludge/water interface was extremely turbulent, and oil was continuously being removed
    into the water, says Horsup. After 10 min, 99% of the sludge had been removed, and the test was essentially complete. In
    contrast, the incumbent product removed sludge much more slowly, and after two hours, a maximum of only 30% of the
    sludge had been removed.

    A series of laboratory corrosion tests on this new formulation under a range of flow rates and shear stresses also indicated
    promise. Our suite of lab tests suggests that the new formulation is one of our better inhibitors, said Horsup. It was at
    least 10% better from a cost-performance standpoint than the same incumbent product run in the sludge removal flow
    loop.

    Pages: 1 2

    [Posted in Projects/Facilities/Construction, Production/Operations, SPE Home Page Feed ]

    Bookmark this page for a permanent link to this entry.

    Previous Post
    Next Post

    z Search

    z About SPE Updates


    http://updates.spe.org/index.php/2007/04/25/corrosion-inhibitor-and-cleaner-rolled-into-one/1/ 5/13/2007

    You might also like