MAGNETIC NANOPARTICLES AS A POTENTIAL DEMULSIFIER; THE NEXT WONDER MATERIAL
The Magnetic Nanoparticles (MNPs) have proved themselves to be an excellent demulsifying agent because of its high recyclability and high surface area. Even though there are lots of chemical demulsifiers, there is still an urgent need to develop more efficient techniques and demulsifiers to meet eco-friendly and economically competitive requirements for oil and water separation from stable emulsions and for oil recovery from oil spills. In this paper, a single layer oleic acid coated magnetite ( Fe3O4@OA ) nanoparticles were synthesized using the co-precipitation method and the ability of this MNP as a novel demulsifier is analyzed. This demulsifier is used to demulsify a cyclohexane-diluted crude oil-in-water type ( CO-NE ) type emulsion under the presence of an external magnetic field. PARAMETERS AFFECTING THE PERFORMANCE OF MNPs AS A DEMULSIFIER The effects of various parameters such as dosage or concentration, wettability, pH, process type, salinity etc on the demulsification effi