Transportation of heavy crude oil through pipelines poses a great challenge in oil and gas industry. Crude oil chokes the pipelines when the temperature drops below the pour-point temperature. In the present study, a bio-based additive, i.e., Cashew Nut Shell Liquid (CNSL) has been tested as a flow improver for heavy crude. CNSL was obtained from waste cashew nut shell by means of mechanical extraction, and it was completely characterized. Similarly, the crude oil used in the study was characterized for its physio-chemical properties. Also, the crude oil was subjected to Saturates, Aromatics, Resins and Asphaltene analysis and Fourier Transform Infra-Red analysis. The raw and additive-treated crude oil with different CNSL dosages were subjected to pour-point and rheology measurements and optical micro-imaging analysis which indicated a remarkable improvement in flow whereby an optimum dose of 2000 ppm was observed. Furthermore, the effects of different parameters like shear rate, concentration of the flow improver and the effect of temperature on the crude oil flowability were studied. The process variables were optimized by means of Taguchi method, and the percentage contribution of each parameter was identified with the help of ANOVA table. The results indicate that a remarkable improvement in flow was observed at an optimum dose of 2000 ppm. The contribution of the concentration was found to be around 53%, whereas the contributions of the shear rate and the temperature were only 18.08 and 28.91%, respectively. Therefore, it has been observed that CNSL flow improvers extracted from cheap reasonable resources are more effective as they are cost-effective and eco-friendly when compared to conventional additives.

通过管道运输重质原油在石油和天然气工业中提出了巨大的挑战。当温度降至倾点温度以下时，原油会阻塞管道。在本研究中，已经测试了一种生物基添加剂，即腰果壳油（腰果壳油）（CNSL）作为重质原油的流动改进剂。CNSL是从腰果壳中进行机械提取而得的，并进行了完全表征。同样，研究中使用的原油也具有其理化特性。同样，对原油进行饱和，芳烃，树脂和沥青质分析以及傅立叶变换红外分析。对具有不同CNSL剂量的原油和经添加剂处理的原油进行了倾点和流变测量以及光学显微成像分析，结果表明流量有了显着改善，从而观察到2000 ppm的最佳剂量。此外，还研究了剪切速率，流动改进剂的浓度以及温度对原油流动性的影响等不同参数的影响。通过Taguchi方法对过程变量进行了优化，并借助ANOVA表确定了每个参数的百分比贡献。结果表明，在2000 ppm的最佳剂量下，观察到了流量的显着改善。发现浓度的贡献约为53％，而剪切速率和温度的贡献分别为18.08和28.91％，分别。因此，已经观察到，与常规添加剂相比，从廉价的合理资源中提取的CNSL流动改进剂更为有效，因为它们具有成本效益和生态友好性。