Petroleo Brasileiro S.a. - Petrobras

Montserrat Fortuny Heredia

Alexandre Ferreira Santos

Márcio Nele De Souza

Cláudio Dariva

Lisiane Dos Santos Freitas

Rita De Cássia Bomfim Lemos

Maria De Fatima Pereira Dos Santos

Regina Celia Lourenco Guimarães

Ricardo Andre Guarnieri

Raquel Campos Coutinho

Bianca Machado Da Silva Ferreira

A process for the treatment of water/oil (W/O) emulsions is described which includes the addition of an ionic liquid, under heating, to a water/oil emulsion containing between 0.5% and 85% of water per volume as a dispersion phase, until the concentration of the ionic liquid in the emulsion remains within the range of 0.01 &#x3bc;L/g to 100 &#x3bc;L/g. The ionic liquid used is a salt of a general CAformula in a liquid state at temperatures below 150&#xb0; C., where Ais an anion and Cis a cation, which has at least a hydrophobic alkyl chain connected to a cation group. The heating method includes conventional heating and heating via microwaves. In the heating via microwaves, the salts of the general CAformula present synergic behavior in separation efficiency in relation to conventional heating.

Process for treatment of water/oil emulsions

Method for the microwave emulsion treatment of water-in-oil (W/O) emulsions, including a) determining, for an W/O emulsion the optimum conditions of the variables: water content, salt content, pH value of the aqueous phase, initial temperature, microwave application power, final temperature and drop size distribution to be adjusted in the industrial plant, as a function of the features of the tested crude oil such as viscosity, density, asphaltene content, total acidity, such conditions being those required for obtaining at least 90% separation efficiency of the emulsion in the presence of microwave radiation: b) utilizing such information for the initial adjustment of application conditions of the method to phase separation units in refineries and production units; c) perform on line tests of the variables of step a) of the process response in the streams effluent from separation units, being the response the water content and salt content tests, so as to feedback the information to the best adjustment of the process conditions for microwave application; and d) utilizing the on line or laboratory tests of the effect of the method as a tool for monitoring the efficiency of the breaking of the W/O emulsion.

Method for the microwave treatment of water-in-oil emulsions

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