Impact of Asphaltene Stabilizers on the Elasticity of a Crude Oil-Water Interface and Its Correlation to Demulsification under Desalting Conditions

Impact of Asphaltene Stabilizers on the Elasticity of a Crude Oil-Water Interface and Its Correlation to Demulsification under Desalting Conditions

Asphaltenes

Crude oil

Viscosity

Demulsification

Emulsions

Refining

Emulsification

Desalination

Phase interfaces

The use of asphaltene stabilizers, also referred to as crude stabilizers, is a valuable chemical tool available to the refiner to successfully process unstable or incompatible crude oil blends in crude oil desalters. The increasing interest in crude stabilizers has motivated the need to understand their mechanism of action and ways to predict their actual performance in the field from lab-scale experiments. In the present study, commercial crude stabilizers were evaluated as asphaltene inhibitors and as interfacial viscosity modifiers in interfacial dilatational rheology experiments. Moreover, their ability to enhance the activity of a commercial demulsifier to break water-in-crude oil emulsions was evaluated in a lab-scale electrostatic desalter simulator that aims to replicate the conditions of a refinery desalter. The results showed that the improvement in demulsification efficiency did not correlate to the asphaltene inhibition performance, but it correlated better to the reduction in interfacial viscosity (viscous modulus) due to the addition of crude stabilizers. The synergistic interactions between the demulsifier and some crude stabilizers were captured in the interfacial dilatational experiments, which suggests that this technique would be a useful tool for the selection of the best demulsifier/crude stabilizer combination, and quantify the expected performance and benefits in the refinery desalter. 2021 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.

275-289

36

Energy and Fuels

2022

Perez, Peter L.

Zaragoza, Jenee' N.

Patel, Nimeshkumar K.

Dion, Michael A.

journalArticle

8870624

10.1021/acs.energyfuels.1c03360