Effect of demulsifiers on interfacial properties governing crude oil demulsification

Conference · Sun May 01 00:00:00 EDT 1988 · Am. Chem. Soc., Div. Pet. Chem., Prepr.; (United States)

OSTI ID:6678428

Mukherjee, S; Kushnick, A P

Crude oil is almost always produced as persistent water-in-oil emulsions which must be resolved into two separate phases before the crude can be accepted for pipelining. The water droplets are sterically stabilized by the asphaltene and resin fractions of the crude oil. These are condensed aromatic rings containing saturated carbon chains and napthenic rings as substituents, along with a distribution of heteroatoms and metals. They are capable of crosslinking at the water drop-oil interface. Chemical demulsifiers are most commonly used to separate the emulsions into water and oil phases. The demulsifiers are moderate (2,000-50,000) molecular weight polydisperse mostly nonionic block copolymers with hydrophilic and hydrophobic segments. An example (Figure 1) of the most commonly used demulsifier is the oxyalkylated alkyl phenol formaldehyde resin. The alkyl group can be butyl, amyl, or nonyl and the interfacial activity is controlled by the relative amounts of ethylene oxide (EO) and propylene oxide (PO) attached to the polar end. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how various parameters such as interfacial tension, interfacial shear viscosity, dynamic interfacial tension gradient, dilational elasticity and demulsifier clustering affect the demulsification effectiveness. To this end, the authors have studied both crude oil as well as asphaltene stabilized ''model' water-in-oil emulsions. In this paper, some of the results of the authors' study are presented.

• Research Organization: Exxon Chemical Co., (ECTD), 8230 Stedman Street, Houston, TX (US)
• OSTI ID: 6678428
• Report Number(s): CONF-880659-
• Journal Information: Am. Chem. Soc., Div. Pet. Chem., Prepr.; (United States), Vol. 33:1; Conference: ACS symposium on advances in oil field chemistry, Toronto, Canada, 5 Jun 1988
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
DEMULSIFIERS
USES
PETROLEUM
CHEMICAL PROPERTIES
ASPHALTENES
COPOLYMERS
EMULSIONS
ETHYLENE
OXIDES
PHASE STUDIES
RESINS
VISCOSITY
ADDITIVES
ALKENES
ASPHALTS
BITUMENS
CHALCOGENIDES
COLLOIDS
DISPERSIONS
ENERGY SOURCES
FOSSIL FUELS
FUELS
HYDROCARBONS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
ORGANIC POLYMERS
OTHER ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PETROCHEMICALS
PETROLEUM PRODUCTS
POLYMERS
TAR
023000* - Petroleum- Properties & Composition