Comparative study on the performance and properties of polyether and polyacrylate crude oil demulsifier

Abstract

ABSTRACT Polyacrylate crude oil demulsifier is one of the hot topics in the research and development of demulsifier at present, there is a lack of systematic comparative study on performance and properties of polyether and polyacrylate crude oil demulsifier. In this paper, the demulsification performance and microscopic demulsification process of the two demulsifiers, namely polyacrylate P(MA-DBC) and polyether P199–59 are discussed. The demulsification performance of polyether P199–59 was superior to that of polyacrylate P(MA-DBC). The study of the microscopic process of demulsification established that for P199–59, the diffusion rate was faster, the saturated adsorption capacity was higher, the ability to destroy the oil-water interface film was stronger and the probability of water droplets collision coalescence was higher; therefore, it can achieve faster dehydration speed and higher dehydration rate than that of P(MA-DBC). The results of this comparative study are meaningful for improving the demulsification performance of polyacrylate demulsifier.