Search Results (23)

In this study, formation water sample No. 1082 from the Narimanov OGPD, together with crude oil samples from the Bulla-Deniz and Muradkhanli fields, was examined under laboratory conditions to evaluate the efficiency of chemical reagents. The Alkan-318 demulsifier, Marza-1 inhibitor, Difron-4201 depressor additive, and a combined ADM composition (Alkan-318 + Difron-4201 + Marza-1 in a 1:1:1 ratio) were tested for their effects on water separation, corrosion inhibition, sulfate-reducing bacterium activity, paraffin deposition, and pour point depression. Comparative experiments showed that the ADM composition demonstrated superior performance over individual reagents at equal concentrations. At an optimal dosage of 600 g/t, the ADM composition reduced the residual water content (mass fraction) of Bulla-Deniz (75% initial water cut) and Muradkhanli (41% initial water cut) crude oils to 0.1 wt.% and 0.8 wt.%, respectively, after thermochemical treatment. The depressant performance was evaluated based on the degree of pour point reduction (ΔT, °C) relative to untreated oil. At optimal concentrations, Difron-4201 and the ADM composition reduced the pour point by 9.0–10.0 °C, demonstrating the superior efficiency of the multifunctional composition compared to individual additives. Corrosion tests revealed that Marza-1 and ADM provided up to 99.9% protection in aggressive H₂S and CO₂ environments, while ADM also exhibited a nearly complete bactericidal effect (99.8%) against sulfate-reducing bacteria, highlighting its multifunctional efficiency. Full article

Undesirable water-in-crude oil emulsions in the oil and gas industry can lead to several issues, including equipment corrosion, high-pressure drops in pipelines, high pumping costs, and increased total production costs. These emulsions are commonly treated with surface-active chemicals called demulsifiers, which can break an oil–water interface and enhance phase separation. This study introduces a novel approach based on neural networks to estimate demulsification efficiency and to aid in the selection of demulsifiers under field conditions. The influence of various types of demulsifiers, demulsifier concentration, time required for demulsification, temperature and asphaltene content on the demulsification efficiency is analyzed. To improve model accuracy, a modified full-scale factorial design of experiments and the comparison of response surface method with multilayer perception neural networks were conducted. The results demonstrated the advantages of using neural networks over the response surface methodology such as a reduced settling time in separators, an improved crude oil dehydration and processing capacity, and a lower consumption of energy and utilities. The findings may enhance processing conditions and identify regions of higher demulsification efficiency. The neural network approach provided a more accurate prediction of maximum of demulsification efficiency compared to the response surface methodology. The automated multilayer perceptron neural network, with an architecture consisting of 3 input layers, 14 hidden layers, and 1 output layer, demonstrated the highest validation performance R² of 0.991932 by utilizing a logistic output activation function and a hyperbolic tangent activation function for the hidden layers. The identification of shifted optimal values of time required from demulsification, demulsifier concentration, and asphaltene content along with sensitivity analysis confirmed advantages of automated neural networks over conventional methods. Full article

In this paper, the basic concept of surfactants as chemical additives and their diversified classification system are first expounded, laying a theoretical foundation for the subsequent study of their application in demulsification technology. Then, the specific application cases of various types of surfactants in the field of demulsification are deeply analyzed, and ways in which they achieve effective separation of emulsions through their unique physical and chemical properties are revealed. Further, the internal action mechanism of surfactant demulsifier, including how to destroy the stability of emulsion and promote the separation of oil and water phase, is systematically described. On this basis, the significant advantages of surfactant demulsifier compared with traditional methods are summarized, including high cost-effectiveness, high demulsifier efficiency, strong stability, wide adaptability, and easy operation. Finally, the development direction and challenges of surfactant demulsifier in the future are prospected. Full article

Experiences in the production, transportation and preparation of crude oil for transportation have shown that specific problems arise related to their mixing, including water contamination. In recent years, interest in studying these problems has significantly increased, mainly due to the development of extraction technologies for heavy oil samples and bitumen. Along with various difficulties encountered during the pipeline transportation of complex rheological crude oil blended with each other and with light oil, including condensate (such as sedimentation, etc.), imbalances are also observed during storage, as well as in the processes of delivery and reception. During the dehydration of oil mixtures, a synergistic effect is observed in the consumption of demulsifier. The article investigates, in accordance with international standards and based on laboratory tests, how the physico-chemical properties (density, viscosity, freezing point, saturated vapor pressure, chemical composition) of mixtures formed by blending various grades and compositions of Azerbaijani oil examples with each other and with condensate change and how the efficiency of dehydration of oil mixtures is affected by the mixing ratio of the oil involved. It was found that the quality indicators (physico-chemical parameters) of oil mixtures differ non-additively from the initial parameters of the blended products and in some cases, this difference is even observed with anomalies. Moreover, depending on the mixing ratio of the oil, variations in the consumption of demulsifier were also identified. Full article

This study aims to optimize the demulsification performance of a carbon quantum dot (CQD)-enhanced chemical demulsifier in industrial emulsions under thermal, mechanical, and thermomechanical effects. Experiments were conducted to assess treatments like organic treatment (OT), zeta potential modifier aqueous solution (ZPMAS), and acid treatment (9.25 wt.% HCl) at varying dosages, along with CQD–chemical mixtures optimized through a simplex-centroid mixture design (SCMD) to minimize basic sediment and water (BSW). Under the thermomechanical scenario, a system with 500 mg∙L⁻¹ CQDs and OT achieves 0.5% BSW and a droplet size of 63 nm, while an SCMD-optimized system (500 mg∙L⁻¹ CQDs + 380 mg∙L⁻¹ OT + 120 mg∙L⁻¹ ZPMAS) achieves 0% BSW and larger droplets (>70 nm). CQDs enhance demulsifiers by destabilizing water-in-oil (W/O) Pickering emulsions, leveraging their nanometric size, high surface area, thermal conductivity, and amphiphilicity, thanks to their hydrophobic core and surface hydrophilic groups (-OH, NH₂, -COOH). This research enhances the understanding of demulsification by employing green demulsifiers based on CQDs and provides a promising cost-efficient solution for breaking stable emulsions in the petroleum industry. It minimizes the use of complex and expensive active ingredients, achieving BSW values below 0.5%, the standard required for crude oil transport and sale, while also reducing separation equipment operation times, and improving overall process efficiency. Full article

Nanoparticles have been widely applied to treat emulsion-containing wastewater in the form of chemical demulsifiers, such as SiO₂, Fe₃O₄, and graphene oxide (GO). Owing to their asymmetric structures and selective adsorption, Janus nanoparticles show greater application potential in many fields. In the present work, the novel magnetic Janus graphene oxide (MJGO) nanoparticle was successfully prepared by grafting magnetic Fe₃O₄ to the surface of the JGO, and its demulsifying ability to treat a crude oil-in-water emulsion was evaluated. The MJGO structure and its magnetic intensity were verified by Fourier-transform infrared spectra (FTIR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and magnetization saturation (MS) tests. Compared with GO and JGO, MJGO displayed the superior efficiency (>96%) to demulsify the crude oil-in-water emulsion, which can be attributed to the reduced electrostatic repulsion between MJGO and the emulsion droplets. Furthermore, the effects of pH and temperature on the demulsification performance of MJGO were also studied. Lastly, the recyclability of MJGO largely reduced the cost of demulsifiers in separating crude oil and water. The current research presents an efficient and recyclable demulsifier, which provides a new perspective for the structural design of nanomaterials and their application in the field of demulsification. Full article

Water in heavy crude oil (W/O) emulsions, which are stubborn mixtures of immiscible heavy crude oil and brine, are a ubiquitous challenge in the petroleum industry. They cause serious corrosion problems, increase the viscosity of petroleum and make the production cost very high. This phenomenon appears during the production of crude oil and should be treated to maximize the overall profitability of oil production and meet transportation requirement. Surfactants are some of the most useful demulsifiers and play a pivotal role in breaking brine/oil emulsions. Herein, we aimed to combine ethyleneamine units and ethyleneoxide units to prepare star-shaped surfactants and test the effect of this combination on the demulsification performance. First, diethylenetriamine reacted with glycidyl 4-nonyl ether (GNE) through an epoxy ring opening to prepare trinonyl phenoxy diethylenetriamine (TNDT). Then, ethylene oxide units were introduced via the interaction of hydroxyl groups with 2-(2-chloroethoxy)ethanol to form ethoxylated trinonyl phenoxy diethylenetriamine (ETNDT). The chemical structures of the surfactants were verified via FTIR and NMR characteristic techniques. The surfactants were applied as demulsifiers for W/O emulsions. It was found that the introduction of the ethyleneoxide units enhanced the solubility of the water and the demulsification performance of the prepared surfactants. The demulsification efficiency was enhanced via ethoxylation and reached 100% for ETNDT for most of the W/O emulsions. Full article

The growing energy demand has created a special interest in the unconventional reserves of heavy and extra-heavy oil, despite their difficulty both in extraction and separation due to the high specific gravity, high viscosity, low mobility, and high content in asphaltenes and heteroatoms. The study is a comprehensive review of the implemented technologies and emerging techniques for the dehydration of heavy and extra-heavy oils with an °API gravity from 20 to below of 10 and a viscosity between 100 and 10,000 cP. Special focus is given to the electrostatic treatment, due to its versatility of applications and its potential for the further improvement in dehydration efficiency, thus reducing the demand for energy and chemical demulsifiers. Full article

In the heavy petroleum industry, the development of efficient demulsifiers for the effective breaking of interfacially active asphaltenes (IAA)-stabilized water-in-heavy oil (W/HO) emulsions is a highly attractive but challenging goal. Herein, a novel nitrogen and oxygen containing demulsifier (JXGZ) with strong hydrogen bonding has been successfully synthesized through combining esterification, polymerization and amidation. Bottle tests indicated that JXGZ is effectual in quickly demulsifying the IAA-stabilized W/HO emulsions; complete dehydration (100%) to the emulsions could be achieved in 4 min at 55 °C using 400 ppm of JXGZ. In addition, the effects of demulsifier concentration, temperature and time on the demulsification performance of JXGZ are systematically analyzed. Demulsification mechanisms reveal that the excellent demulsification performance of JXGZ is attributed to the strong hydrogen bonding between JXGZ and water molecules (dual swords synergistic effect under hydrogen bond reconstruction). The interaction of the “dual swords synergistic effect” generated by two types of hydrogen bonds can quickly break the non-covalent interaction force (π-π stacking, Van der Waals force, hydrogen bonds) of IAA at the heavy oil–water interface, quickly promote the aggregation and coalescence of water molecules and finally achieve the demulsification of W/HO emulsions. These findings indicate that the JXGZ demulsifier shows engineering application prospects in the demulsification of heavy oil–water emulsions, and this work provides the key information for developing more efficient chemical demulsifiers suitable for large-scale industrial applications. Full article

The Second Oil Production Plant of Xinjiang Oilfield produces a large amount of highly emulsified crude oil, which has a serious impact on the subsequent oil–water separation. At present, the concentration of demulsifier has increased to 2000 mg/L, but the demulsification effect is still poor. In this paper, the source and physical properties of highly emulsified crude oil are investigated firstly. The results show that highly emulsified crude oil is composed of three kinds of liquid: (1) conventional water flooding (WF); (2) chemical flooding (CF); (3) fracturing backflow fluid (FB). Among them, high zeta potential, low density difference, high viscosity, and small emulsion particles are responsible for the difficulty in the demulsification of the WF emulsion, while the high pH value is the reason why the CF emulsion is difficult to demulsify. Therefore, systematic experiments were implemented to investigate the optimal demulsification approach towards the three liquids above. As for the WF emulsion, it was necessary to raise the temperature to 70 °C and the concentration of the demulsifier to 200 mg/L. Moreover, it was only necessary to add 200 mg/L of demulsifier to break the CF emulsion after adjusting the pH value to 7, while no extra treatments were needed to break the FB emulsion. We hope this study can provide a new insight for the treatment of emulsions in the later stage of oilfield development. Full article

Demulsifiers are considered the key materials for oil/water separation. Various works in recent years have shown that demulsifiers with polyoxypropylen epolyoxyethylene branched structures possess better demulsification effects. In this work, inspired by the chemical structure of demulsifiers, a novel superhydrophilic/underwater superoleophobic membrane modified with a polyoxypropylene polyoxyethylene block polymer was fabricated for enhanced separation of O/W emulsion. First, a typical polyoxypropylene polyoxyethylene triblock polymer (Pluronic F127) was grafted onto the poly styrene-maleic anhydride (SMA). Then, the Pluronic F127-grafted SMA (abbreviated as F127@SMA) was blended with polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) for the preparation of the F127@SMA/PVDF ultrafiltration membrane. The obtained F127@SMA/PVDF ultrafiltration membrane displayed superhydrophilic/underwater superoleophobic properties, with a water contact angle of 0° and an underwater oil contact angle (UOCA) higher than 150° for various oils. Moreover, it had excellent separation efficiency for SDS-stabilized emulsions, even when the oil being emulsified was crude oil. The oil removal efficiency was greater than 99.1%, and the flux was up to 272.4 L·m⁻²·h⁻¹. Most importantly, the proposed F127@SMA/PVDF membrane also exhibited outstanding reusability and long-term stability. Its UOCA remained higher than 150° in harsh acidic, alkaline, and high-salt circumstances. Overall, the present work proposed an environmentally friendly and convenient approach for the development of practical oil/water separation membranes. Full article

Fuel and oil spills during the exploration, refining, and distribution of oil and petrochemicals are primarily responsible for the accumulation of organic pollutants in the environment. The reduction in contamination caused by hydrocarbons, heavy metals, oily effluents, and particulate matter generated by industrial activities and the efficient recovery of oil at great depths in an environmentally friendly way pose a challenge, as recovery and cleaning processes require the direct application of surface-active agents, detergents, degreasers, or solvents, often generating other environmental problems due to the toxicity and accumulation of these substances. Thus, the application of natural surface-active agents is an attractive solution. Due to their amphipathic structures, microbial surfactants solubilize oil through the formation of small aggregates (micelles) that disperse in water, with numerous applications in the petroleum industry. Biosurfactants have proven their usefulness in solubilizing oil trapped in rock, which is a prerequisite for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Biosurfactants are also important biotechnological agents in anti-corrosion processes, preventing incrustations and the formation of biofilms on metallic surfaces, and are used in formulations of emulsifiers/demulsifiers, facilitate the transport of heavy oil through pipelines, and have other innovative applications in the oil industry. The use of natural surfactants can reduce the generation of pollutants from the use of synthetic detergents or chemical solvents without sacrificing economic gains for the oil industry. Therefore, investments in biotechnological processes are essential. It is predicted that, in the not-too-distant future, natural surfactants will become viable from an economic standpoint and dominate the world market. The application of biosurfactants in these settings would lead to industrial growth and environmental sustainability. The main goal of this paper is to provide an overview of diverse applications of biosurfactants on environmental remediation, petroleum biotechnology, and the oil industry through a scientific literature review. Full article

This work aimed to use abietic acid (AA), as a widely available natural product, as a precursor for the synthesis of two new amphiphilic ionic liquids (AILs) and apply them as effective demulsifiers for water-in-crude oil (W/O) emulsions. AA was esterified using tetraethylene glycol (TEG) in the presence of p-toluene sulfonic acid (PTSA) as a catalyst obtaining the corresponding ester (AATG). AATG was reacted with 1-vinylimidazole (VIM) throughout the Diels–Alder reaction, forming the corresponding adduct (ATI). Following this, ATI was quaternized using alkyl iodides, ethyl iodide (EI), and hexyl iodide (HI) to obtain the corresponding AILs, ATEI-IL, and ATHI-IL, respectively. The chemical structure, surface activity, thermal stability, and relative solubility number (RSN) were investigated using different techniques. The efficiency of ATEI-IL and ATHI-IL to demulsify W/O emulsions in different crude oil: brine volumetric ratios were evaluated. ATEI-IL and ATHI-IL achieved promising results as demulsifiers. Their demulsification efficiency increased as the brine ratios decreased where their efficiency reached 100% at the crude oil: brine ratio (90:10), even at low concentrations. Full article

Various nanoparticles have been applied as chemical demulsifiers to separate the crude-oil-in-water emulsion in the petroleum industry, including graphene oxide (GO). In this study, the Janus amphiphilic graphene oxide (JGO) was prepared by asymmetrical chemical modification on one side of the GO surface with n-octylamine. The JGO structure was verified by Fourier-transform infrared spectra (FTIR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and contact angle measurements. Compared with GO, JGO showed a superior ability to break the heavy oil-in-water emulsion with a demulsification efficiency reaching up to 98.25% at the optimal concentration (40 mg/L). The effects of pH and temperature on the JGO’s demulsification efficiency were also investigated. Based on the results of interfacial dilatational rheology measurement and molecular dynamic simulation, it was speculated that the intensive interaction between JGO and asphaltenes should be responsible for the excellent demulsification performance of JGO. This work not only provided a potential high-performance demulsifier for the separation of crude-oil-in-water emulsion, but also proposed novel insights to the mechanism of GO-based demulsifiers. Full article

In the last few decades, there has been an increasing trend for the usage of natural products and their derivatives as green and renewable oil-filed chemicals. Use of these compounds or their derivatives contributes to reducing the use of traditional chemicals, and enhances green chemistry principles. Curcumin (CRC) is one of the most popular natural products and is widely available. The green character, antioxidant action, and low cost of CRC prompt its use in several applications. In the present study, Curcumin was used to synthesize two new amphiphilic ionic liquids (AILs) by reacting with 1,3-propanesultone or bromoacetic acid to produce corresponding sulfonic and carboxylic acids, CRC-PS and CRC-BA, respectively. Following this, the formed CRC-PS and CRC-BA were allowed to react with 12-(2-hydroxyethyl)-15-(4-nonylphenoxy)-3,6,9-trioxa-12-azapentadecane-1,14-diol (HNTA) to form corresponding AILs, GCP-IL and GRB-IL, respectively. The chemical structures, surface tension, interfacial tension, and relative solubility number (RSN) of the synthesized AILs were investigated. The efficiency of GCP-IL and GRB-IL to demulsify water in heavy crude oil (W/O) emulsions was also investigated, where we observed that both GCP-IL and GRB-IL served as high-efficiency demulsifiers and the efficiency increased with a decreased ratio of water in W/O emulsion. Moreover, the data showed an increased efficiency of these AILs with an increased concentration. Among the two AILs, under testing conditions, GCP-IL exhibited a higher efficiency, shorter demulsification time, and cleaner demulsified water. Full article