By L.U.M. GmbH
Crude oil is seldom produced alone because it generally is commingled with water. But water creates several problems and usually increases the unit cost of oil production. The produced water must be separated from the oil, treated, and disposed of properly. Furthermore, sellable crude oil must comply with certain product specifications, including amount of basic sediment and water (BS&W) and salt. Produced water must be separated from the oil to meet crude specifications. Produced oilfield emulsions can be classified into three broad groups: Water/Oil, Oil/Water, Multiple or Complex emulsions. In the oil industry, W/O emulsions are more common. Demulsification is the breaking of a crude oil emulsion into oil and water phases. From a process point of view, the oil producer is interested in three aspects of demulsification: - Rate or the speed at which this separation takes place. - Amount of water left in the crude oil after separation. - Quality of separated water for disposal. Enhanced oil recovery (abbreviated EOR), also called tertiary recovery, is the extraction of crude oil from an oil field that cannot be extracted otherwise. One EOR process is steam flooding & water injection. LUM analytical instruments apply for, e.g., - Quantification of the separated small crude oil phase on top of the seawater phase. - The droplet size distribution - Evaluation of surfactant performance - Sedimentation and flocculation behaviour of nanoparticle modified polymers for EOR - Centrifugal recovery of solvent-diluted bitumen from oil sands. The entire world of emulsion characterization, as provided by LUM instruments, is applied to crude oil for Emulsion stability, Demulsification, Droplet & Particle Characterization, Additive selection & dosage.
