Effect and optimization of bed properties on water-in-oil emulsion separation

Abstract

Water-in-oil emulsion separation through a fibrous media bed is a complex process in industries. In this article, in order to select the optimal fibrous material for the separation of water-oil emulsion, three types of commercial fibers as fibrous beds were used to separate water from diesel oil. Based on the principle of orthogonal experimental design, a series of experiments were performed to investigate the effect of such parameters as bed porosity (0.77-0.89), bed length (100-400 mm) and settlement length (120-480 mm) on the separation efficiency and the superficial velocity, and then three parameters were optimized to achieve good separation performance. The experiment showed that the separation efficiency could reach 77% and the flow velocity could reach 30 m/h under the optimal bed structure and stable working conditions. The results of this paper could provide basic designing reference for the industrial application of fibrous bed coalescer.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• W/O emulsion
• coalescence
• separation
• orthogonal optimization

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China 973 Program under Grant (2014CB748500) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant (51578239).