A Study of Thin Liquid Films as Related to the Stability of Crude Oil Emulsions

✍ Scribed by Hongbo Fang; Lu Zhang; Lan Luo; Sui Zhao; Jingyi An; Zhicheng Xu; Jiayong Yu; Angelica Ottova; H.Ti Tien

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 95 KB
• Volume: 238
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-9797
• DOI: 10.1006/jcis.2001.7497

✦ Synopsis

In this paper, we report the influence of surface-active compounds on the stability of crude oil emulsions using the apparatus designed for bilayer lipid membrane studies. The results obtained show that natural surface-active materials in crude oil, such as petroleum acids and asphaltenes, play a pivotal role. The ionized acids formed by the reaction between the petroleum acids and the alkali can decrease the interfacial tension and accelerate the thinning as well as the breakdown of the thin liquid film. The asphaltenes can adsorb onto the interface and improve the stability of the film. The order of the stability of the films between crude oil and alkaline solutions is found to be as follows: crude oil with asphaltenes removed (ii) <crude oil (i) <crude oil with both asphaltenes and petroleum acids removed (iv) <crude oil with petroleum acids removed (iii). Copyright 2001 Academic Press.