Screening and compounding of gas hydrate anti-agglomerants from commercial additives through morphology observation

The anti-agglomeration performance of single or compounded commercial chemical additives with/without the addition of alcohol as a co-surfactant was evaluated using a sapphire cell and an autoclave reactor with a focused beam reflectance measurement (FBRM) probe. Five kinds of gas hydrate morphologies, clumpy-like, slush-like, flocculent-like, slurry-like, and powder-like, were found during evaluating the effect of the commercial additives in (water + oil) systems. The experimental results showed that AEO-3 combined with some commercial chemical additives, especially Span 20, exhibits good anti-agglomeration performance. The hydrate slurry thus formed has a high stability and will not result in agglomeration for a long period of time. A compounded inhibition mechanism, in which one of the components disperses water droplet in the oil phase and the other component prevents formed hydrate from agglomeration, was proposed. A new structure of hydrate anti-agglomerant was designed according to the evaluating results of the single or compounded commercial additives with/without the addition of alcohol material.