Surfactant–solid complex for enhancing the low in pipelines : An experimental approach

Background: Viscoelastic soluble polymeric additives have been used successfully for a long time as drag reducers in pipelines carrying commercial liquids like crude oil. Most of these polymers suffer from irreversible degradation when exposed to high shearing zones as in valves, elbows, and pumps which reduces, or eliminates, its flow enhancement effect. Insoluble additives were proven to be an effective drag reducer that overcomes the degradation drawback of soluble additives. On the other hand, insoluble additives suffer from the lack of viscoelasticity which limits their use as flow enhancers. The creation of complexes from soluble and insoluble additives is a field of research that is rarely explored despite its importance in introducing new flow enhancement methods for a higher drag reduction performance. The present work introduces a new surfactant–solid complex as a drag-reducing agent for turbulent flow in pipelines. Results: The surfactant, solid, and their complexes’ drag reduction performance was tested in a closed-loop turbulent flow liquid circulation system, while rheological characteristics of the soluble additives were tested using a standard rheometer. All the surfactant solutions showed non-Newtonian shear thinning behavior in all the investigated concentrations that ranged between 500 and 1300 wppm. The initial experimental result indicated that the surfactant solution's drag reduction performance was higher than that of the solid suspensions. On the other hand, the drag reduction performance was enhanced by 52% when creating a 1300 wppm surfactant–2000 wppm solid complex. This improvement in the drag reduction performance is due to the formation of surfactant–solid-enforced aggregates with high resistance to shear forces and high turbulence suppression efficiency. Conclusions: The present work introduces a new drag reduction solid–surfactant complex by creating aggregates combining the viscoelastic properties of surfactants with the resistance to high shear forces exerted by the solid particles. The polar nature of the surfactant micelles that form in single-phase flow systems contributed significantly to trapping the solid's micro-particles as enforcement to resist the shearing forces applied by the turbulent flow system

Demulsification of petroleum emulsions using microwave separation method

The formation of emulsions during oil production and processing is a costly problem, both in terms of chemicals used and production losses. For economic and operational reasons, it is necessary to separate the water completely from crude oils before transporting or refining them. Experimental data are presented to show the influences of Triton X-100, low-sulfur wax residue (LSWR), sorbitan monooleate (Span 83) and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) on the stability and microwave demulsification of petroleum emulsions. It was found that emulsion stability was related to several parameters including the surfactant concentration, water-to-oil phase ratio (10 to 90%), temperature and agitation speed. Based on this study, a possible emulsion-minimization approach utilizing microwave irradiation is suggested, which could be implemented in refineries. Compared with conventional heating, the use of microwave heating can significantly enhance the demulsification rate, reaching over 90 v/v% for the emulsions studied in this work

Elucidation of physio-chemical characterization of ultrasonic chemically demulsified crude oil

Formation of emulsions during oil production and processing is a costly problem, both in terms of chemicals used and production losses. It is necessary to separate the water completely from the crude oils before transporting to refinery. Traditional ways of breaking emulsions using heat and chemicals are disadvantageous from both economic and environmental perspectives. In this thesis, an alternative and multiple frequency energy potential of ultrasonic-assisted chemicals (environmental friendly) in demulsification of water-in-crude oil emulsions were utilized and investigated. Two types of crude oils were used namely; (Tapis and Miri crude oils). The study begun with some characterization studies to provide understanding of fundamental issues such as formation, formulation and breaking of emulsions by both chemicals and ultrasonic approaches. The aim was to obtain optimized operating conditions as well as fundamental understanding of water-in-oil stability, upon which further development of the demulsification process could be developed. The stability studies were carried out by analyzing operating conditions such as surfactant concentration, surfactant type, oil type, temperature and water-oil ratio (30-50%). For stability performance test, four emulsifiers were used namely; Triton X-100, Span 83, Cocamide DEA and SDDS. It was found that there exist a correlation between these factors and emulsion stability. Among these, emulsion stabilized by cocamide DEA was the best and followed by Span 83, SDDS and Triton X-100 respectively. For chemical emulsification performance test, five types of demulsifies with different functional groups were utilized; these are Hexylamine, Dioctylamine, Cocamine, Polyethylene Glycol, PEG 1000 and PEG 600. Among these; Hexylamine was found to be the best in separating water and oil from emulsions (88%) and followed by cocamine (81%), Dioctylamine (79%), PEG 1000 (76%) and PEG 600 (70%). For ultrasonic forces (3, 5, 7 and 9) applied for emulsion breaking, results were significantly enhanced the separation time and amount of water separated. Results showed that, ultrasonic power, 9 and Hexylamine (1.0%) in demulsifying the crude oil A stabilized by Span 83 with maximum water separation of 96% after 150 min. Also, and within the same operating conditions mentioned above, a maximum water separation up to 99% was achieved with crude oil B. The other investigated demulsifiers with ultrasonic force showed also high water separation percentages such as cocamine (1.0%) emulsifier with 91% and 93% for crude oils A and B emulsions respectively. The results obtained in this thesis have exposed the capability of ultrasonic-assisted chemicals technology in demulsification of W/O emulsions. Further works are nevertheless required to provide deeper understanding of the mechanisms involved to facilitate the development of an optimum system applicable to the industr

Biodegradable grease from palm oil industry wastes

This paper presents an experimental grease formulation made from spent bleaching earth (SBE) as the thickener, waste cooking oil (WCO) as the base oil and fumed silica as the additive. The properties of the different grease formulations, such as the thermal stability, the decomposition temperature, the penetration, the corrosivity on a copper strip, the drop point, and the friction-coefficient, were evaluated by standard methods and the grease formulations with and without the additive were compared. The results show that the grease without fumed silica required a high percentage of SBE (up to 80% w/w) while the addition of the fumed silica reduced the amount of SBE and increased the amount of the base oil. Fumed silica increased the penetration number of the grease by 1 standard (NLGI standard), made the grease slightly corrosive, eliminated the drop point, and increased the decomposition temperature. The friction coefficient of the formulated grease had an average value of 0.095 without fumed silica and 0.11 with fumed silica. The overall results show that SBE and WCO can be used to formulate grease and that fumed silica can increase the performance of the formulated grease

Insoluble Additives for Enhancing a Blood-Like Liquid Flow in Micro-Channels

This study introduces an approach for flow enhancement in the bloodstream using insoluble additives as non-degradable drag reducing agents that can replace the polymeric soluble additives. An open micro-channel liquid flow system with three different channel sizes was assembled and used to test the drag reduction performances of the solutions investigated. Three different nanopowders (with five different addition concentrations) were investigated and used to form solutions of artificial blood with blood-like rheological properties. The experimental results showed that the optimum drag reduction performance was achieved using bismuth III oxides (65%) for a 200 ppm concentration solution flowing through a 100 µm channel, while titanium IV oxides and fumed silica achieved 57 and 55% drag reduction for a 200 ppm concentration solution flowing in a 50 μm channel, respectively

Laser-treated microporous silicon-titanium dioxide photocatalyst for water treatment

Many materials have been implemented as photocatalyst and most recently the semiconductors. In top of the semiconductors materials, titanium dioxide which considered one of the most effective photocatalyst for water treatment application. Nevertheless, TiO2 application in water treatment still limited due to the low solar energy used by the system. These limitations are associated to the large band gap energy which limits the solar spectrum that activate the surface and most of the photoexcited electron-hole pairs tend to recombine in TiO2 surface, thus leading to a reduction in the photocatalytic performance. In this paper for the first time, Titanium dioxide was immobilized on laser-microporous silicon wafer type-p. The microporous silicon (MPSi) wafer was prepared by electrochemical etching assisted by laser projection

Rapid Prototyping of Microfluidics Devices using Xurograhy Method

Rapid prototyping of microchannel gain lots of attention from researchers along with the rapid development of microfluidic technology. The conventional methods carried few disadvantages such as high cost, time consuming, required high operating pressure and temperature and involve expertise in operating the equipment. In this work, new method adapting xurography method is introduced to replace the conventional method of fabrication of microchannels. The novelty in this study is replacing the adhesion film with clear plastic film which was used to cut the design of the microchannel as the material is more suitable for fabricating more complex microchannel design. The microchannel was then mold using polymethyldisiloxane (PDMS) and bonded with a clean glass to produce a close microchannel. The microchannel produced had a clean edge indicating good master mold was produced using the cutting plotter and the bonding between the PDMS and glass was good where no leakage was observed. The materials used in this method is cheap and the total time consumed is less than 5 hours where this method is suitable for rapid prototyping of microchannel

Wall-Pressure Fluctuations of Modified Turbulent Boundary Layer with Riblets

The experimental design incorporated to study the response of a turbulent pressure drop fluctuations to differently shaped longitudinal grooves, involved three conformations or structures being triangular, trapezoidal and spaced triangular grooves with height 800 m. The ratios of the groove height to groove space for triangular were: 1, 0.8, 0.6 and 0.4. Experiments were therefore performed at free stream velocity up to 0.44m/sec, which were corresponding to Reynolds number (Re)5.3×. The development of the obtained turbulent layerdownstream of the grooves was then compared with the results from the corresponding smooth-wall case. To conclude, the effect of the spaced triangular riblets on the turbulent characteristics seemed to be more pronounced than the effects of the triangular and trapezoidal riblets

Investigating the effect of insoluble additives type on the drag reduction performance in a crude oil turbulent flow system

In the present work, the effect of three insoluble additives densities on reducing the drag of crude oil was investigated. The objective of the present work is to evaluate the effect of the insoluble additive’s densities on their drag reduction efficiency in hydrocarbon flow medium. Three powders with different densities are chosen, namely carbon powder, glass powder, and copper powder, with a density of 1710 kg/m3 , 2550 kg/m3 , and 8950 kg/m3 , respectively. The turbulence flow environment was created in a custom-made rotating disc apparatus with a maximum rotation speed of 300 rpm. To evaluate the effect of the powder density, the particle's size was chosen to be 100 µm. All the solutions were tested at the exact operating conditions with a rotation speed ranging between 200 to 2200 rpm. The experimental results showed a clear effect of the powder density on the drag reduction performance. The glass powders showed the highest drag reduction effect, while the copper and carbon powders were lower. The effect of the degree of turbulence on the drag reduction performance of the powders was clear, where the interaction between the powders and the turbulence structures (eddies) governed the turbulence-suppression efficiency of the additives

Investigating the Degradation Resistance Improvement of Polymer Surfactant Complex Drag Reducing Agent

Polymers-Surfactant complex efficacy in reducing the drag is of an interest subject in drag reduction research. Turbulent drag reduction (DR) efficiency of Sodium Polystyrene Sulfonate (NaPSS) sodium Alkylbenzene sulfonate complex was studied in a rotating disk apparatus. The solution complex was prepared by varying the concentration of the polymer between 100 to 1200 ppm and the surfactant between 100 to 700ppm. Measurement of torque values were recorded for each sample. The NaPSS (Sodium Polystyrene Sulfante) was found to have an ability to reduce the drag in the turbulent flow. A significant improvement was recorded for the addition of tiny amount of surfactant to the polymer system compare to the pure polymer drag reduction. At high surfactant concentration, it was found that the polymer drag ability decrease. The polymer was degraded when it is subjected to a high shear stress. The degredation resistance was increased by the addation of the surfactant to the polymer solution at concentration range of 100ppm to 400ppm of surfactan