COMPARATIVE STUDY AND ANALYSIS OF CARBON STEEL CORROSION IN CO2 SATURATED ENVIRONMENT.

Abstract

Carbon steel is arguably one of the most efficient, reliable and safer kind of steel used in petroleum and gas industry for production, distribution and transmission of products. Acetic acid (HAc), is also one of the impurities in oil and gas during transportation from the well sites to the refineries. It is formed in the formation water, which also present in oil and gas production and transportation processes. Acetic acid aids corrosion in pipelines and as a result causes environmental degradation. It has been observed that high concentration of HAc increases the rate of corrosion of carbon steel in CO2 environment. Corrosion slows down production of oil and gas and thereby reduces revenue. In this work, a comparative study and analysis of carbon steel corrosion in the presence of HAc was carried out at 25oC and 80oC in CO2 saturated environment. Weight loss and surface analysis methods (XRD, EDX and SEM) were used to characterize the corrosion layers of the carbon steel samples at different conditions. The weight loss results show that the corrosion rate increased initially with the increase in the concentration of HAc and attained a maximum, and then gradually decreased. At 25oC with 500ppm of HAc, the corrosion rate is 1.35 mm/yr, and 1.80 mm/yr when 1000ppm of HAc was added to the solution. At 80oC and 500ppm HAc, the corrosion rate was 1.80 mm/yr and 2.70 mm/yr with 1000ppm of HAc. A further increase was observed at 3.45 mm/yr when 2500ppm of HAc was added to the system. This increase in corrosion rate is attributed to increase in temperature as increased temperature increases the rate of all reactions. The XRD analysis confirmed that the iron is formed in the absence of HAc while siderite (FeCO3), which is an ore of iron is observed on the materials with HAc. The SEM and EDX results confirmed that a fairly dense material of FeCO3 was formed in the absence of HAc and the layers became porous on addition of HAc to the solution. Key Words: Corrosion, Acetic acid, Carbon steel, CO2, Environment