Studies of Kinetics of Coalescence of Water‐in‐Furrial Crude Oil Emulsions by Confocal Microscopy

The kinetic of coalescence of water in Furrial crude oil emulsions (W/O) during the initial stage of demulsification process is showed through of high‐resolution image micrographics by using a confocal microscope. Furrial crude oil from Monagas state is a crude oil extra heavy with severe flocculation/aggregation problems. The kinetic of the initial stage in the coalescence process is critical and of great importance in the definition of the foreword behavior. This information allowed us to characterize the demulsification rate process in a Furrial crude oil. Total W/O emulsion separation was achieved about of 2 hours at 80ºC. The initial fast coalescence is characterized by a short binary coalescence time, which is followed by a large binary coalescence time. Our results demonstrate that the initial coalescence rate determinate the time necessary to achieve a total separation.

Keywords:

• Confocal microscopy
• water‐in‐crude oil emulsions

This work was supported by FONACIT‐Venezuela through grants FONACIT‐G97000593 and G‐2005000430.