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US 7,442,311 B2Granted
Emulsion and effluent treatment processes
AssigneeHydrocarb (Trinadad) Limited
InventorDolly Nicholas
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Abstract
An emulsion and affluent process which treats and breaks very tight emulsions and separates dissolved solids from associated fluids produced in industry, whereby solids and fluids are separated into clean interfacial phases thus providing an improved quality saleable product resulting in significant reductions in base sediments and water, and compliance with international saleable product and environmental effluent standards with a specific focus on biological oxygen demand and chemical oxygen demand levels for treated fluids.
Claims11
A method of treating and breaking down tight emulsions including oil molecules, comprising:
- injecting the emulsion with an oxidizing or reducing agent;
- changing the temperature of the emulsion;
- maintaining the changed temperature for a predetermined period of time, wherein said maintained temperature change, in combination with said injected agent, causes reduced interfacial tension and chained scission of the oil molecules, said chained scission causing the molecular weight of the oil molecules to change and enchancing the final viscosity of a saleable product;
- allowing interfacial separation of the emulsion;
- and
- outputting a saleable product phase, a solid phase and an aqueous phase, wherein the aqueous phase has a reduction in biological oxygen demand and chemical oxygen demand levels compared to the emulsion,
- wherein the saleable product phase is one hundred percent of the oil molecules, and
- wherein the solid phase is free of one hundred percent of the oil molecules and includes environmently friendly recyclable solids.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.