Comparison of Silicon-assisted Chemicals with the conventional methods in demulsification of water-in-crude oil emulsions

Abstract

The dehydration of the crude oil is a topic of permanent industrial attention. The use of green chemicals to assist conventional separation techniques seems to be very promising. The adequate applications of silicon demulsifiers may contribute to improve the efficiency and capacity of the existing separation methods. This paper deals with the application of silicon demulsifiers to assist water/oil separation processes in w/o emulsion and presents some experimental results in comparison with the conventional demulsifiers in specific applications. Three different concentration of demulsifiers; 0.5,1.5,and 3 v/v percents were applied in two different crude oils denoted as A and B, the water cut was varied as 50-50 and 30-70. Results showed that silicon demulsifiers gave high effect up to 90% within 1 week.