Demulsifiers
During its recovery, crude oil is produced as an emulsion with water. Before the crude oil is further processed, these crude oil emulsions must be broken into the oil fraction and the water fraction. For this purpose, use is generally made of petroleum demulsifiers. Petroleum demulsifiers are surface-active polymeric compounds which are able to effect the required separation of the emulsion constituents within a short time. Petroleum demulsifiers include alkylene oxide block copolymers and alkoxylated polyethyleneimines. These can be used as individual components, in mixtures with other demulsifiers, or else as crosslinked products. Crosslinkings are carried out, for example, by means of reactions with alkoxylated low molecular weight alcohols (such as, for example, glycerol or pentaerythritol) or alkoxylated alkylphenol formaldehyde resins with bifunctional compounds such as diepoxides or diisocyanates. Narrowly meshed star-shaped polymers (amidoamine dendrimers) can be used as water-soluble demulsifiers (more accurately: deoilers) for crude oil/water emulsions. In addition, alkoxylated, alkylated and esterified dendritic polyesters can also be used. (Leinweber et al, US Patent 7,569,615, 8/4/2009)
Recent US Patents
To go to the text version of the patent, click on US Patent Number Search and enter the patent number in the search box. 3/2/2010 7,671,098 Alkoxylated, cross-linked polyglycerols and use thereof as biodegradable demulsifier 8/4/2009 7,569,615 Alkoxylated dendrimers and use thereof as biodegradable demulsifiers
Recent Journal Articles
To get to the abstract or article, copy the citation and paste it into favorite search engine (ex. Google). The date is the date the entry was found.
Review Articles
To get to the abstract and the article, open up your internet search engine and copy the title to the search box. Once on the Journal's website, find the year and issue. Then scroll to the article. The date is the date of the entry made on this page.
Editor's Notes
As the literature is reviewed, and items of interest concerning this topic are found. These may be added in an abbreviated form with the reference. Readers and contributors are invited to add their own notes. Contributors may add them directly and other readers can simply send their notes to the editor, Roger Corneliussen at rcorneliussen@4spe.org. He may edit and add them to this page at his discretion.