Formulation of stable water-in-oil emulsions (#1987)

Authors

Rodríguez, María Alejandra

Cuevas, Gabriel

Rojas, Aquiles

Rosales, Sergio

Abstract

Water-in-crude oil (W/O) emulsions are a dispersed system that, in some industries such as the oil industry, generate operational problems, which is why different treatments have been developed to destabilize them; however, there are few studies about the influence that the type of surfactant has on the application of these techniques. That is why the objective of the present research is to formulate stable W/O emulsions with different types of surfactant so that they can later be used in destabilization processes: mechanical, chemical, electrical in order to evaluate their effect on the applied treatment, this aligned with SDG No. 9. To this end, W/O emulsions were formulated with different types of surfactant (anionic, cationic, nonionic and amphoteric), their stability was evaluated by centrifugation and the formulated emulsions were characterized under different parameters such as apparent viscosity, apparent density, emulsification temperature and conductivity. Among the most relevant results, it is found that it is possible to formulate stable W/O emulsions with different types of surfactants (Span 80, soy lecithin), with a water proportion of 15% and the use of surfactant (sec-Butanol), characterized by a droplet size less than 10 microns, density of 0,86 g/mL and relative viscosity of 2.5 (-).