Modeling and simulation of crude oil desalting in an industrial plant considering mixing valve and electrostatic drum

Applying ultrasonic fields to separate water contained in medium-gravity crude oil emulsions and determining crude oil adhesion coefficients

“…Various methods have been proposed and tested in the past two decades to exploit ultrasound to enhance water-in-oil demulsification [21] , [22] , [23] , [24] , [25] , [26] , [27] , and oil in produced water emulsification [17] , some of which have been patented [28] . More recently, some ultrasound methods have been scaled up for field-scale processing plant applications [22] , [29] , [30] , [31] , [32] , [33] , [34] .…”

“…Specifically, for demulsification operations, two ultrasound effects have been identified as influencing the separation of water from oil. These are the production of standing waves and cavitation [21] , [28] , [30] . Cavitation depends on how ultrasound treatments are applied and can either enhance droplet formation in fluids involving liquid phases that are immiscible or indeed stimulate emulsification [21] .…”

“…These are the production of standing waves and cavitation [21] , [28] , [30] . Cavitation depends on how ultrasound treatments are applied and can either enhance droplet formation in fluids involving liquid phases that are immiscible or indeed stimulate emulsification [21] . Cavitation in powerful ultrasound treatments can cause larger drops to disperse into smaller droplets by micro-jet activity fracturing the drops leading to emulsification [35] .…”

“…Cavitation in powerful ultrasound treatments can cause larger drops to disperse into smaller droplets by micro-jet activity fracturing the drops leading to emulsification [35] . On the other hand, in certain conditions and fluid types, cavitation can stimulate the coagulation of drops instead of their fragmentation [36] , thereby enhancing water and crude oil separation [21] . The bulk viscosity of the emulsified oil-in-water fluids and the emulsion droplet size play a role in the efficiency of ultrasonic wave fields in separating oil and water [37] .…”

“…Ultrasound has been successfully used in demulsification mixtures of water with natural plant oils and hydrocarbon-based solvents as well as crude oil [21] , [25] , [37] . Several advantages of ultrasonic methods have been reported by researchers.…”