Emulsion petroleum industry

Within the petroleum industry, emulsion of oil and water may be associated with every stage of production, transportation, or refining. The extent of emulsification and the economic impact of contaminants associated with emulsions in hydrocarbon-processing equipment will determine what treating methods, if any, are necessary to produce desired hydrocarbon specifications. An understanding of the impact of oil contaminants and incomplete demulsification on key hydrocarbon processing areas is required. The prime areas of concern are typically... 

An extensive variety of chemical demulsifiers are available to enhance resolution of the water-in-od emulsion that is produced at the wellhead These demulsifiers are simply surfactants that are used to counteract the effect of surfactants naturally present in the wellhead or process emulsions, and which stabilize the water in the oil phase. In the petroleum industry, emulsions of oU in water are known as reverse emulsions. Demulsifiers are also used to destabilize these oil-in-water emulsions. The wide variety of oU types and produced water chemistries in petroleum industry emulsions necessitates an even wider variety of chemical demulsifiers. In addition, production and processing variables require demulsification chemicals tailored to particular process needs. 

Petroleum and Goal. The alkanolarnines have found wide use in the petroleum industry. The ethanolamines are used as lubricants and stabilizers in drilling muds. Reaction products of the ethan olamines and fatty acids are used as emulsion stabilizers, chemical washes, and bore cleaners (168). Oil recovery has been enhanced through the use of ethan olamine petroleum sulfonates (169—174). OH—water emulsions pumped from wells have been demulsifted through the addition of triethanolarnine derivatives. Alkanolarnines have been used in recovering coal in aqueous slurries and as coal—oil mix stabilizers (175—177). 

L.L. Scliramm Emulsions Fundamentals and Applications in the Petroleum industry, American Chemistry Society, Washington, DC 1992. 

D. P. Rimmer, A. A. Gregoli, J. A. Hamshar, and E. Yildirim. Pipeline emulsion transportation for heavy oils. In L. L. Schramm, editor. Emulsions fundamentals and applications in the petroleum industry, volume 231 of ACS Advances in Chemistry Series, pages 295-312. American Chemical Society, Washington DC, 1992. 

J Mikula, VA Munoz. Characterization of emulsions and suspensions in the petroleum industry using cryo-SEM and CLSM. Colloids Surfaces A Physicochem Eng Aspects, 174(1—2) 23—36, 2000. 

Figure 1.2 Example of a petroleum industry water-in-oil-in-water-in-oil (W/O/W/O) emulsion. From Schramm and Kutay [97]. Copyright 2000, Cambridge University Press.

Emulsions may be encountered throughout all stages of the process industries. For example, in the petroleum industry (see Chapter 11) both desirable and undesirable emulsions permeate the entire production cycle, including emulsion drilling fluid, injected or in situ emulsions used in enhanced oil-recovery processes, wellhead production emulsions, pipeline transportation emulsions, and refinery process emulsions [2], Such emulsions may contain not just oil and water, but also solid particles and even gas, as occur in the large Canadian oil sands mining and processing operations [2-4],... 

Suspensions are created at an early stage of processes used to separate valuable minerals or oil by froth flotation (Chapter 10). Suspensions are also quite important and widespread in the petroleum industry (Chapter 11) and, like emulsions and foams, suspensions may be encountered throughout each of the stages of petroleum recovery and processing (in reservoirs, drilling fluids, production fluids, process-... 

Table ll.1 Some emulsions, foams, and suspensions in the petroleum industry. ... 

A petroleum industry term for a relatively unstable, easy-to-break emulsion, as opposed to a more stable, difficult-to-treat emulsion. See also Tight Emulsion. 

A petroleum industry term used to denote an oil-in-water emulsion (most well-head emulsions are W/O). Reverse emulsion has the opposite meaning of the term invert emulsion . See also Invert Emulsion. 

A petroleum industry term for a practically stable emulsion, in contrast to a less stable, or loose , emulsion. 

Mikula, R.J. Emulsion Characterization in Emulsions, Fundamentals and Applications in the Petroleum Industry, Schramm, L.L., (Ed.), American Chemical Society Washington, 1992, pp. 79-129. 

Schramm, L.L. Kutay, S. Emulsions and Foams in the Petroleum Industry in Surfactants Fundamentals and Applications in the Pe-... 

Nasr-el-din, H.A., Surfactant Use in Acid Stimulation in Surfactants, Fundamentals and Applications in the Petroleum Industry, Schramm, L.L. (Ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2000, pp. 329-364. Sinclair, A.R. Terry, W.M. Kiel, O.M. Polymer Emulsion Fracturing in Proc., Annual Technical Conference of SPE Society of Petroleum Engineers Richardson, TX, 1973, paper SPE 4675. 

The study of forces between deformable interfaces can be broken into two categories, the interactions between two sets of deformable interfaces (e.g., two oil drops in water), or a rigid particle and a single deformable interface. Study of the forces in these systems is motivated by the prevalence of both types of systems (drop-drop or drop-rigid particle) in industrial problems. For example, wetting and adhesion of oil emulsions in porous media are concerns in the petroleum industry for both liquid/liquid separations and oil recovery [1]. An understanding of the interaction forces between... 

This discussion is aimed primarily at alkylation processes, which are characterized by two-phase emulsions. The traditional process includes a hydrocarbon phase in contact with a sulfuric acid catalyst to form the environment for proper alkylation. In the petroleum industry, the desired product is a high octane alka-late, but other alklation processes have other desired products. 

Experience in class separations and analyses of fossil-derived materials began with the petroleum industry. The literature in this area is far too extensive to review here. Furthermore, petroleum literature deals principally with physical and chemical analyses of distillate fractions which are important to product characteristics. Recently, asphalts have received increased attention since they contain a wide range of known hazardous compounds. Most methods applied to whole samples of petroleum crudes have proven inadequate when dealing with synthetic coal liquids or shale oils because of stable emulsion formation in separation steps caused by larger amounts of inorganic and hydrophilic compounds. 

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