Preparation and performance evaluation of a new ter-polymer scale inhibitor

Abstract

Maleic anhydride (MA), vinyl acetate (VAc) and sodium styrene sulfonate (SSS) were used as raw materials for synthesizing a ter-copolymer P(MA-SSS-VAc) by the method of aqueous solution polymerization in the presence of ammonium persulfate as initiator. The structure of the products was characterized by FTIR and ¹HNMR. The synthesis conditions of ter-copolymer were optimized by single factor method. The relationship between the molecular weight of the polymer and the scale inhibition performance was discussed. The scale inhibition mechanism for scale samples was preliminarily studied by SEM and EDS analysis. The scale inhibition performance of ter-copolymer was evaluated with the variation of the concentration of the ter-copolymers in aqueous solution, Ca²⁺ concentration, test temperature and pH of the solution. The results showed that the scale inhibition rate for calcium carbonate scale reached 100%, and that for calcium sulfate scale reached over 97%.

Keywords:

• P(MA-SSS-VAc) ter-copolymer
• scale inhibitor
• scale inhibition mechanism
• performance evaluation
• calcium carbonate
• calcium sulfate

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Projects No. 51074133), Major Frontier Projects of Application Foundation in Sichuan Province (No. 19YYJC1537) and Project of State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation (Projects No. PLN201807).