Nanoengineered Surfaces for Hydrate Mitigation in Subsea Oil and Gas Operations

Oceans play a crucial role in regulating the climate and overall health of the planet. They also contain oil and gas reserves that are increasingly being tapped as our onshore sources diminish. As a result, deepwater production is growing at a rapid pace. The Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico demonstrated the pressing need to reconsider and significantly advance the state-of-art in subsea flow assurance technologies to monitor and prevent such catastrophic failures. The goal of this project is to conduct fundamental research that will greatly augment our understanding of emulsions under subsea conditions. Currently we know very little ñ for example, the physicochemical and environmental effects of the demulsifiers used to break down oil in the recent Gulf oil spill are still unknown. These systematic studies could eliminate the use of such energy intensive and environmentally unfriendly methods and protect our Oceans.