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Doctoral Thesis
Author(s):
Panoussopoulos, Konstantin
Publication Date:
1998
Permanent Link:
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-a-001931430
Rights / License:
In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted
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ETH Library
Diss. ETH No. 12516
presented by
KONSTANTIN PANOUSSOPOULOS
Dipl, Chemieal Engineer ETH
born on [uly 22nd, 1967
eitizen of Greeee
Abstract
Crude oil - water emulsions occur in many stages during oil production. The
main task in offshore oil and gas production is to separate the gas, oll and water
phases and to treat the individual phases in order to meet the product
specifications. In spite of the great importance of this field, only few scientific
studies have been conducted so far. The opaqueness and the variation in the
properties of the crude oils are some of the difficulties associated in the
characterisation, emulsion formation and measurement of the separation
behaviour of crude oil - water emulsions. The present work involves in the
development of the experimental techniques for the measurement of the
variation with time in the spatial hold-up of water (water cut), drop size
distributions and the heights of the sedimenting and coalescing interfaces
during the separation of water drops from different crude oils. Furthermore,
batch separation experiments are also carried out using different crude oils and
model oils to simulate the crude oil - water emulsions formed in off-shore oil
rigs. The effect of hold-up, settler geometry, temperature, mixing conditions,
the concentration of the demulsifier and type of oil characterised by the
concentration of the waxes on the separation is experimentally investigated.
The experimental spatial variation in the hold-up of water with time is shown
to be predicted by the Kynch theory. The experimental separation profiles are
successfully used to verify the theoretical models developed based on droplet
sedimentation and interfacial coalescence. The various studies are discussed
below.
Separation of crude oil-water and model oll emulsions was successfully studied
using newly developed experimental techniques. The Gamma Density Profile
Apparatus was able to record the continuous variation of the water cut
simultaneously along the whole height of a batch settler. Rapid separating
crude oil emulsions could be measured. The position of the sedimenting and
the coalescing interfaces and especially the hold-up gradient inside the
emulsion zone was determined for several crude oil-water systems. The
structure of the emulsion is determined by the shape of the concentration
profiles. The sedimentation and coalescence rates and, therefore, the quality of
the separation were determined. An additional new equipment, based on video
viii
technique, was developed for dense-packed crude oil emulsions. The Drop
Video Monitoring system (DVM), was so constructed that drop size
distributions from 10 to 1000 um could be measured, on-line or through batch
sampling of emulsions from flow loops, mixers or settlers.
Several crude oil and model oil emulsions could be characterised by using the
experimental equipment's and techniques, as described above, regarding
especially the separation behaviour. An array of experiments has been carried
out in order to show what influences the sedimentation and coalescence
behaviour and therefore final separation time. Effects of temperature, settler
geometry, water cut, water cut with addition of demulsifiers, demulsifier
concentration, drop size distribution and wax extraction on the separation were
studied experimentally. For both the light and heavy crude oils, the viscosity is
found to decrease exponentially with the temperature thereby increasing the
sedimentation velocity and interfacial coalescence rate due to larger drops
formed in the mixer. This resulted in shorter separation times for the
dispersions. The reduction in the viscosity of the heavy crude oil with increase
in the temperature is much larger than that for the light oil. The separation time
decreased with decreasing settler height and diameter, which could be used for
the design of the continuous flow separators. Although the coalescing interface
at the separated water layer is sharp at all water cuts, the sedimenting interface
IX
at the separated oillayer is sharp only at high water cuts as reflected by the step
change in the GDPA profiles. The water cut had also an effect on the
sedimentation and coalescence. The separation time decreased with increasing
water cut for all crude oils systems strongly in the absence of demulsifiers than
in the presence of demulsifiers. Higher demulsifier concentrations and longer
residence times in the mixing vessel resulted in reduced separation times due to
increased binary coalescence during mixing process. This means that larger
drops were formed and so the sedimentation velocity as reflected by the larger
initial slope of the sedimentation profile obtained from the batch settling
experiments.
A model is presented allowing for the effect of the presence of initial turbulence
during the sedimentation, which predicts the variation with time in the heights
of the coalesced water and separated oil for a batch dispersion of given height,
water cut, drop diameter and physical properties. The variation in the hold-up
of water with time along the height of the dispersion can be predicted by the
Kynch theory. These are verified using the experimental results obtained above.
xi
Zusammenfassung
Ein mathematisches Modell wurde presentiert, das den Effekt der Anfangs-
turbulenz whrend der Sedimentation erlaubt und die dynamische Variation
der Hhen des getrennten Wassers und getrennten ls, in Abhngigkeit der
totalen Hhe, des Wasser holdups, der Tropfendurchmesser und der
physikalischen Daten voraussagt. Die dynamische Variation der gemessenen
Holdup-Profile konnte auch vorausgesagt werden ber die ganze Hhe des
Trenners. Die Modelle wurden mit den experimentellen Daten berprft.