On the characterisation of wax deposition in an oscillatory baffled device

Abstract

Deposition from viscous fluids in industrial processes is a major nuisance during production of many useful materials ranging from oil to foodstuffs. In a cold-wall scenario rapid deposition of gel-like material causes restriction, processing delays and potentially reduction in product quality. One well-known example of this phenomenon is paraffin wax deposition, which is one of the greatest challenges in the petroleum industry, where the main implication is the blockage of oil. The aim of this work was to investigate the effect of applying oscillation on wax deposition, with the main focuses on the effects of oscillation frequencies and amplitudes, as well as the volume of the wax-oil mixture. Wax deposit formation was measured gravimetrically. The results indicate that baffles and oscillation reduce wax deposition; increasing both oscillation frequency and amplitude result in a decrease in wax deposition; and the degree of reduction is greater with changing oscillation amplitude than with frequency. It was also found that deposition on the column wall rather than the baffles was the main contribution to the total wax deposit.

Design, performance characterization and applications of continuous oscillatory baffled reactors

“…Nevertheless, the operating parameters of the OBR are very often adjusted to the specific application empirically since the existing design guidelines are not robust. (Brown and Ni, 2010) Synthesis of metal-organic frameworks (Laybourn et al, 2019) Photo-oxidation (Fabiyi and Skelton, 1999;Gao et al, 2003) Ozonation (Lucas et al, 2016) Mitigation and wax deposition (Ismail et al, 2006) Saponification (Harvey et al, 2001) Biofuel production (Harvey et al, 2003;Kefas et al, 2019;Masngut et al, 2010) Oil droplet breakage (Mignard et al, 2006(Mignard et al, , 2004) Crystallization / Precipitation (Briggs et al, 2015;Brown et al, 2015;Castro et al, 2013;Kacker et al, 2017;McLachlan and Ni, 2016;Raval et al, 2020;Siddique et al, 2015) Cross flow filtration (Horie et al, 2018)…”

Oscillatory Flow Reactors (OFRs) for Continuous Manufacturing and Crystallization

“…and mitigation of wax deposition. 176 For polymerization applications, some interesting correlations have been made between droplet size (as a function of f and x 0 ) and the polymer 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 particles. 104 There has been significant interest in OFR platforms for biological applications and process intensification 177 i.e.…”

“…The majority of early studies featured batch-type OFR setups for various applications, including bioreactions ,, and chemical reactions, polymerization, ,, photocatalysis, − flocculation, , gas–liquid contacting, phase-transfer catalysis (PTC), hydrate formation and mitigation of wax deposition . For polymerization applications, some interesting correlations have been made between droplet size (as a function of f and x 0 ) and the polymer particles .…”

Analysis of the Processes of Paraffin Deposition of Oil from the Kumkol Group of Fields in Kazakhstan

“…As oils represent a multicomponent system, paraffin crystals often take hexagonal and orthorhombic forms [36][37][38]. It should be noted that the process of transition of one modification of crystals into another can be observed.…”