Chemical demulsification of natural petroleum emulsions of Assam (India)

Abstract

About one third petroleum production of every oil field is in the form of water in oil emulsions which are normally stabilized by the nickel and vanadium porphyrins from asphaltene portion of crude. The petroleum emulsions of Assam oil fields which have been taken for the present work, are stabilized by the organometallic compounds of iron and high molecular weight compounds from asphaltenes. There is least possibility of any change on these natural petroleum emulsions. The Assam oil field emulsions have been tried to be broken by polyoxyethylene alkyl phenols, their sulphonates and sodium sulphonates in different combinations. The nonyl and octyl phenols with 30 and 40 molecules of ethylene oxide are found most suitable demulsifiers for Lakwa, Rudrasagar and Galeki (Assam) oil fields emulsions. The effect of polyoxyethylene alkyl phenols followed by the treatment of polyvalent cations had been studied for the first time in the field of demulsification of natural petroleum emulsions. This new combination has shown the best results as this broke even the most stable petroleum emulsions which could not be broken by polyoxyethylene alkyl phenols alone. In the present paper a simple method for calculating the chemical demulsification efficiency and a factor H/S paralleled to HLB & H/L for evaluating the emulsification property of surface active agents, have been introduced.