Water is often present as emulsified droplets in crude oil, which leads to problems in subsequent pipeline transport. Removing water from crude oil is a common practice in the industry. Chemical additives are usually used to help the dewatering process. In this work, we studied the demulsification process and examined the behavior of additives at the water-oil interface using molecular modeling.<br/> <br/>Using molecular dynamics (MD) and dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulations, we calculated the interfacial tension of water-oil interfaces with adsorbed additive, and studied the interaction of additives with surface-active species present in the crude oil. We also examined the coalescence of additive-coated water droplets using steered simulations. We discuss the advantages of these approaches for investigating interfacial phenomena, but also identify some shortcomings and areas for potential improvement.

Modeling of the interfacial behaviors in demulsification of crude oils

254th National Meeting (2017)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.