DEMULSIFICATION OF CRUDE OIL EMULSION USING SOLUBLE AND NON-SOLUBLE EMUSIFIERS
Authors: *Akhihiero E.T, Oshomogho F.O, Ayodele B.V
DOI Info: N/A
ABSTRACT
Water in oil emulsion occurs at the early stages in the production and treatment of crude oil. Removal of water (demulsification) in the course of crude oil production has been a costly process and it has hampered the production activities in some oil wells in Delta State and many parts of the world. The present work studied the demulsification of crude oil emulsion obtained from three crude oil wells. Demulsification was conducted with Triethanolamine (TEA), Glycerol and Xylene as the chemical demulsifiers. Effectiveness was determined by measuring the percent water removal at time intervals. The process was repeated at various temperature to test the effect of temperature on demulsification. The result showed that using Glycerol gave the best water removal (71.93%) compared to TEA (70.25%) and Xylene (65.20%).
Affiliations: Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria
Keywords: Crude Oil, Demulsification, Emulsion, Glycerol, Xylene
Published date: 2017/12/29
