Treatment of Crude Petroleum/Water Emulsions by Agglomeration Methods Using Fine Coal

Abstract

Persistent crude petroleum-water emulsions are produced in the recovery and extraction of heavier oils, for example, in the hot water processing of surface mined oil sands and during in-situ methods such as steam- or water-flooding. Over the past few years, much attention has been directed to the oil agglomeration method as a means of recovering and upgrading fine coal in water suspensions. The work reported here concerns the use of crude petroleum from produced emulsions in the coal agglomeration process. Two problems are adddressed in this way. Not only is oil recovered and emulsions broken in the case of the produced emulsions, but the coal is also benificiated through the rejection of water and inorganic impurities because of the selectivity of the agglomeration technique. Laboratory-scale experiments are reported using three different samples of produced emulsion from western Canada and a fine coal from waste tailings of a coal preparation plant. Results of the experiments are considered from the point-of-view of both the cleaning of the coal and the treatment of the crude emulsions. Concepts for incorporating this separation scheme into a coal-oil co-processing flowsheet are briefly discussed