A facile approach to synthesize a “star-like” material based on β-cyclodextrin for enhancing the flowability of paraffinic oils

ABSTRACT

A novel compound, which exhibits “star-like” architecture and is expected to be a promising flow improver for paraffinic oils, was presented in the current work. This material was facilely synthesized based on β-cyclodextrin molecule via a catalytic esterification procedure under mild experiment conditions. The chemical formation was characterized by FT-IR, ¹H-NMR, and elemental analysis, respectively. The experimental data revealed that each β-cyclodextrin was attached by approximately seven C14 chains. This type of architecture is supposed to be appropriate to co-crystallize with paraffin melocules through taking the place of a paraffin in crystal lattic and thus disperse the agglomeration of wax crystals. This hypothesis was verified through a yield stress test and rheological analysis. It was observed that after treatment with this compound, the paraffinic oil yielded at a much lower stress value compared to the untreated oil. Moreover, a significant shift of the apparent viscosity vs. temperature curve to the left field occurred. These results demonstrated the capacity of this synthesized compound in enhancing the flowability of paraffinic oils.

KEYWORDS:

• Star-like architecture
• catalytic process
• co-crystallization
• flowability
• paraffinic oil
• yield stress

Acknowledgments

The University of New Brunswick, Department of Chemical Engineering, in their support for data generation is appreciated. The valuable comments made by the anonymous reviewers are also sincerely thanked.

Funding

The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support provided by the National Key Basic Research Program of China (No. 2015CB250904) and PetroChina Innovation Foundation (2015D-5006-0212).