INFLUENCE OF WATER IONS AND ALUMINUM SILICATE PARTICLES ON EMULSION RESOLUTION OF CRUDE OIL

The price of exporting oil is defined by its qualitative properties. These properties are in a direct relation to emulsion stability of desalter feed. The present study was undertaken to experimentally investigate the effects of water ions, and solid particles on emulsions stability. These studies have also confirmed the effects of several process variables such as temperature and contact time between two phases. The selected waters used in this work were distillated water and Persian Gulf water and the fine aluminum silicate solids used include bentonite and kaolinite particles. The emulsion was prepared using 10 ml Maroon crude oil / Iran with 10 ml of each kinds of water, where the bentonite and kaolinite particles were added to the mixture. The results showed that at 30 C and after two days contact time between oil and distillated water, the emulsion became stable and its volume was nearly constant, although no emulsion was observed at 70 C. The use of Persian Gulf water instead of distillated water leaded to unstable emulsion. In addition, using colloidal clay to the mixture resulted in emulsions formation and its stability.