| abstract |
The invention concerns and employs, so as to prevent crude oil from becoming congealed in a transmission line, a thermal insulation gel with controlled crosslinking, that is initially relatively fluid and turning into gel in situ in the pipes only in certain conditions, of temperature among others. Controlled crosslinking can be obtained by carrying out: 1) physical crosslinking processes that is by generating physical links between polymers, links that are perfectly reversible by thermal effect and/or mechanical shearing; and 2) chemical crosslinking processes involving monomers or polymers having functions for producing chemical bonds between polymers. |