Evaluation of newly copolymers and their montmorillonite nanocomposite as cold flow improver for petroleum lubricating oil

The great demand on the energy makes the attention toward modifying lubricating oil. This work tends to prepare the following copolymers; octadecylmethacrylate-co-dodecene (CP1) and octadecylmethacrylate-co-hexadecene (CP2) by free radical solution polymerization using laboratory prepared octadecylmethacrylate monomer with either 1-dodecene or 1-hexadecene. The same monomers also used to prepare their polymers nanocomposite (NP1, NP2) with 1% of nanomontmorolonite by emulsion polymerization. The structures of the prepared polymers and their nanocomposite were elucidated by FTIR, 1HNMR, TGA, DSC, TEM and DLS. These polymers were used as pour point depressant, flow improver and viscosity modifier and showed high efficiency. After comparison of the data of the polymers and their nanocomposite, the nanocomposite give the best results where the pour point decreased from 0 °C to − 18, − 27, − 24 and − 33 °C for CP1, CP2, NP1 and NP2 respectively at the optimum concentration 10,000 ppm. On the other hand the viscosity index increased from 86.57 to 93.25, 92.41, 94.17 and 93.103 for CP1, CP2, NP1 and NP2 respectively, the apparent viscosity increased from 55.863 to 69.31, 119.41, 111.28, and 166.89 cP also the yield stress increased from 652.19 to 1076.3, 1074 and 1480 D/cm2 for CP1, CP2, NP1 and NP2 respectively.