Back to results
US 4,374,734 AGranted
Emulsion breaking of surfactant stabilized crude oil in water emulsions
AssigneeCities Service Company
InventorJack Newcombe
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A process useful for breaking oil in water emulsions produced as the result of a surfactant flood oil recovery project is disclosed. The produced oil in water emulsion, stabilized with surfactants, content is treated with brine and a polyol or quaternary ammonium compound, or both, followed by mixing and settling to form a sprung oil phase and a brine phase.
Claims8
Process for recovering crude oil from an oil-in-water emulsion comprising crude oil, water, and sufficient petroleum sulfonate surface active agents with an equivalent weight range of 350 to 500 to stabilize said emulsion, said process comprising:
- (a) adding to the emulsion
- (1) an amount of brine equivalent to 1 to 50 wt % of the total emulsion prior to brine addition,
- (2) 100 to 1000 wt ppm of quaternary ammonium surfactant compound with a molecular weight of 200 to 700, based on the original emulsion, and
- (3) 100 to 1000 wt ppm of polyol emulsion breaking reagent with a molecular weight of 1,000 to 10,000, based on the original emulsion,
- (b) mixing the above components to break said oil-in-water emulsion, and
- (c) settling the mixture to recover a sprung, or released, oil phase of reduced water content from a water phase.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.