Abstract
The present feature describes for the first time the application of spores from Aspergillus sp. IMPMS7 to break out crude oil-in-water emulsions (O/W). The fungal spores were isolated from marine sediments polluted with petroleum hydrocarbons. The spores exhibited the ability to destabilize different O/W emulsions prepared with medium, heavy or extra-heavy Mexican crude oils with specific gravities between 10.1 and 21.2°API. The isolated fungal spores showed a high hydrophobic power of 89.3 ± 1.9% and with 2 g of spores per liter of emulsion, the half-life for emulsion destabilization was roughly 3.5 and 0.7 h for extra-heavy and medium crude oil, respectively. Then, the kinetics of water separation and the breaking of the O/W emulsion prepared with heavy oil through a spectrofluorometric technique were studied. A decrease in the fluorescence ratio at 339 and 326 nm (I339/I326) was observed in emulsions treated with spores, which is similar to previously reported results using chemical demulsifiers.
Highlights
Mature petroleum reservoirs produce crude oil with large quantities of water due to the employment of enhanced recovery methods that require the use of high amount of water
A total of 35 microorganisms including bacteria and fungi were isolated from marine sediments contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons
IMPMS7 were selected due to their ability to break the emulsion obtained from a heavy crude oil (21 ̊ API)
Summary
Mature petroleum reservoirs produce crude oil with large quantities of water due to the employment of enhanced recovery methods that require the use of high amount of water. Most of such water is emulsified into crude oil during production, which increments the viscosity and makes flow more difficult which causing operational issues concerning production, transportation and refining that impact company productivity. The deliberate emulsifier-assisted formation of heavy crude oil-in-water (O/ W) emulsions has been used as a technical strategy to reduce the viscosity of heavy oils to facilitate their transportation [1, 2]. The kind of emulsions present during petroleum production is quite complex but, they are mainly formed by water-in-oil-emulsion (W/O) because natural demulsifiers present in crude oil such as asphaltenes, resins and napthenic acids favor the formation of such emulsions while others may be present in considerably less proportions, i.e. oil-in-water (O/W), water-in-oilin-water (W/O/W), etc.
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