Aplicação de tensoativos etoxilados no controle da corrosão em oleodutos

Abstract

The corrosion of pipelines and equipment in general in the oil industry, caused due to the aggressive conditions of products, is an important reason that drives the study of surfactants. These surface-active molecules are widely used as corrosion inhibitors, precisely for forming this protective layer, usually in low concentrations, caused by the decreasing surface tension becoming a low cost alternative that avoids continuous exchange of equipment or use of alloys more nobles. Starting from this problem, there is a need for new systems to be capable of forming these protective films on metal surfaces, coverage with high efficiency at low concentrations. This work aims to evaluate the influence of non-ionic surfactants ethoxylates structure in the adsorption process on the inner surface of pipelines. For this purpose were conducted surface tension and contact angle measurements to understand how these surfactants behave in the interfacial region. For evaluation of efficiency and corrosion inhibition systems was performed at linear voltammetry technique using a potentiostat. The results for systems that shows the polarization curves move to lower potential values are added as inhibitors in half. And that these curves are not polarized with respect to the curve obtained without the presence of the inhibitor, this means that these systems do not inhibit the oxidation reactions, indicating that they do not efficiently form a protective film on the sites.