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 efficiency is looked into in this work. The demulsification efficiency (ED) increased with increase in dosage of the MNPs. With more amount of MNPs being added, the interfacial activity increased, which in turn increased the adsorption of various surface-active agents inside the emulsions, thereby enhancing the oil and water separation. An optimum dosage could not be affirmed. The ED also depends upon the wettability of the MNPs.

The type of demulsification process, whether it’s a multistep demulsification or a single step process; also effects the ED. Multistep demulsification exhibited a higher ED than the single-step operation when the same amounts of demulsifier were used. The Fe3O4@OA nanoparticles exhibited very good recyclability as there was no significant change in the ED of the recycled Fe3O4@OA after demulsification was observed over five cycles. The MNPs show different demulsifying performance with different emulsions.

Nowadays demulsification of all kinds of emulsions in the petroleum industry is attracting more and more research opportunities in order to find suitable substitutes for the conventional chemicals for demulsification process. This substitution is necessary to improve the demulsification efficiency in the petroleum industries. Emulsion of all types like Oil in Water type or Water in Oil type is found to be very detrimental in terms of pipeline corrosion and even these emulsions can react with the catalysts used and lead to poisoning of the catalysts. The main cause of corrosion in the pipelines can be attributed to the presence of emulsions in the fluid passing through the pipelines.

In the petroleum and oil industry, the emulsions will be formed in the well bore, inside the pipelines and at various surface facilities during the production of heavy oil. All these emulsions are highly undesirable because will lead to very high pressure drop due to its high viscosity. Serious corrosion problems are also caused by these emulsions as certain emulsions contains salts like chlorides dissolved in water, which promotes active corrosion of the pipelines. In order to increase the efficiency of petroleum and oil production, these emulsions must be treated by some means. The demulsification process is required for increasing the overall profitability of the crude oil production. The crude oil usually contains certain chemical components which make them easily emulsified. Emulsions of all kinds will increase the pumping costs involved, reduced the life of pipelines due to corrosion, increases scaling and reduce the quality of oil produced. For the production of oils, a big budget needs to be maintained for the treatment of emulsions or demulsification processes. That's why more and more research is being attracted to this area to find out ways to demulsify the emulsions of all kinds more effectively.

Most of the emulsions encountered in the petroleum industry are water in oil type. In the past, emulsions were nothing but sludge formed as a by-product during the production process, eventually with lots of research, the emulsions were classified into many types on the basis of different characteristics and started studying the impacts of these emulsions on the oil produced and production efficiency. It can be said that these emulsions are formed because of the agitation or mixing associated during the production process, the hydrocarbons and the functional water is thoroughly mixed inside the production pipelines and reservoirs due to the turbulence or shear effects produced in the mixing process. Depending upon the changes in the environmental conditions of the oil field, new types of emulsions will form, as a result more and more advanced research is still required to counter act this stable emulsions.

OVERVIEW OF APPLICATIONS OF MNPs IN PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

Some emulsions are thermodynamically unstable, which will try to reduce the area at the interface between the oil and water phase during the course of time, but this is not the case of highly stable emulsions, which is really hard to break without any physical or chemical treatments. These are formed due to the presence of various surfactant molecules, polymers which are amphiphilic as well as other solid particles present in the aqueous medium of oil.

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