Dehydrating Heavy Crude Oils with New Amphoteric Block Bipolymers

A series of new amphoteric block bipolymers was prepared by the functionalization of PEO-PPO-PEO block bipolymers with, firstly, a terminal tertiary amine and, subsequently, by means of Michael reaction, with acrylic acid derivatives. Once obtained, the amphoteric block bipolymers were characterized by 1D and 2D nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), size exclusion chromatography (SEC), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Afterwards, the dehydrating capacity of the new demulsifiers was evaluated in three heavy crude oils and one light crude oil. Finally, a quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) analysis was conducted employing quantum parameters of amphoteric bipolymers and physicochemical parameters of crude oils. In the training set and the external validation were considered a set of 24 water removal efficiency (WRE) values. For the training set, six equations, V1-V6, fulfilled the restriction of Q2 value >0.60. Regarding the external validation, the r_m^2 criterion, >0.50, was considered as ...