Study on Demulsification of Water-in-Oil Emulsions Via Microwave Heating Technology

Abstract

A batch microwave heating process of 2450 MHz was examined on crude oil emulsions. The mechanism of microwave heating is essentially that of dielectric heating. After exposing the emulsion to the microwave electromagnetic EM field, molecular rotation and ionic conduction due to the penetration of EM into the emulsion are responsible for the internal heating. In this study, microwave demulsification method was applied on a 50-50 and 20-80% water-in-oil emulsions with microwave exposure time varied from 20 to 180 sec Transient temperature profiles of water-in-oil emulsions inside a cylindrical container were measured. The temperature rise at a given location was almost horizontal (linear). The rate of temperature increase of emulsions decreased at higher temperature due to decreasing dielectric loss of water. Results of this work show that microwave radiation is a dielectric heating technique with the unique characteristic of fast, volumetric and selective heating is appropriate and has the potential to be used as an alternative way in the demulsification process. Microwave demulsification of water-in-oil emulsions does not require chemical additions.