FORMULATION OF SYNTHETIC DEMULSIFIER FOR WATER-IN-OIL EMULSION USING LOCAL RAW MATERIALS

There is an increasing need to limit the use of chemical treating agents especially demulsifiers during oil and gas production and to search safer formulation and cost effective mainly due to environmental constraints. Therefore, the use and performance of demulsifiers have to be improved from the application as well as from the environmental issues. This means that the new demulsifiers formulations must be less toxic and efficient compared to the conventional demulsifiers. This thesis are focusing on two main objectives which are to identify and chose suitable local raw materials to be synthetic demulsifier focuses on „green‟ demulsifier for water-in-oil emulsion and to determine the most effective „green‟ demulsifier by selecting based on the faster time for water separate from crude oil and the highest volume of water separated from crude oil.
This project is conducted based on experiment and testing. An understanding about the extraction method for local raw materials specifically plants, choosing several blend as demulsifier chemical from several material, and method for creating water-in-oil emulsion is needed for completion this project successfully. The demulsifier that created for this project namely Extract Betel Leaf, Extract Cashew Leaf, Blend A, Blend B, Blend C, Blend D and Blend E. There are two testing for this project which is static test and dynamic test. Static test is by using bottle test techniques and determine water separation with time where else for dynamic test is determine water separation by using Bench Centrifuge within specified parameters. All the testing and experiment are conducted in the UTP laboratory.
The result for this project is analysis by using table and graph method. The result for static test is analyses focuses on the performance based on type of demulsifier which are Extract Betel Leaf, Extract Cashew Leaf, Blend A, Blend B, Blend C, Blend D, Blend E and performance based on demulsifier dosage which are 1ml, 2ml and 3ml. The result for dynamic test is analyses focuses on using 3ml dosage of demulsifier. Thus, based on
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the analysis, Blend A and Blend E show the best performance compare to other Blend and Extract materials.
Therefore, Blend A and Blend E is chosen as the most effective demulsifiers for separating water-in-oil emulsion. It is based on the highest volume of water separated from crude oil and the faster time for water separate from crude oil which can be determine from the static test and dynamic test. It also shows that Blend materials are more effective as demulsifier compare to Extract materials. This project is relevant as demulsifiers is an important chemical used widely in the oil industry to prevent the formation of emulsion. This project also relevant because focusing on the „green‟ demulsifier which will be environmental friendly and cheaper than conventional demulsifiers. The author believes that this study will have significant contribution to the oil and gas industry especially in Malaysia.