Synthesis and evaluation of a new polymeric scale inhibitor with multiple scale inhibition properties

Abstract

In this article, the monomers epoxy succinic acid (ESA) and maleic acid ethanolamine (PTA) were prepared, and then the terpolymer scale inhibitor P(ESA-AA-PTA) was synthesized by aqueous solution polymerization using ESA, PTA, and acrylic acid (AA) as monomers. The structures of the synthesized monomers and polymers were characterized by FTIR. The optimum synthesis conditions of the terpolymer were obtained by static scale inhibition experiment, and the effects of the amount of scale inhibitor, test temperature, test time, and solution pH on the inhibition performance of the four scales, CaCO₃, CaSO₄, BaSO₄, and SrSO₄, were discussed. The results showed that the best CaCO₃ scale inhibition efficiency was 85% when the molar ratio of ESA:AA:PTA was 1:1:0.5, the initiator dosage was 10 wt%, the polymerization time was 3.5 hours and the polymerization temperature was 95 °C. In the optimum water environment, the scale inhibition efficiency of CaCO₃ scale and CaSO₄ scale reached 100%, BaSO₄ scale could reach 75% and SrSO₄ scale could reach 54%. P(ESA-AA-PTA) had better scale inhibition properties than the majority of commercially available oilfield scale inhibitors. SEM and XRD results showed that the addition of P(ESA-AA-PTA) scale inhibitor hindered the growth of crystals and made the microscopic morphology of scale samples changed.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

Keywords:

• Scale inhibitor
• P(ESA-AA-PTA) ter-copolymer
• multiple scale inhibition properties
• scale inhibition mechanism

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Southwest Petroleum University, Institute, Chengdu, China, for providing the research facilities needed for the above study.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this article. The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: