Effects of the Dispersed Phase on Oil/Water Wax Deposition

Abstract

In the study of the foundation of the oil / water wax deposition experiment, the emulsification characteristics of crude oil emulsion with high wax content have gradually become the hot research area. In the current research of emulsification characteristics of oil/water emulsion, the attention has been focused on the study of the effects of water cut, stirring speed, particle size distribution on the viscosity of waxy crude oil emulsion in the experiment, in which heavy oil and simulated oil are adopted as the working fluids. In this study, the emulsion with different water cut and stirred by different speed was prepared under three different temperature conditions, the temperature above the wax appearance temperature (WAT), near the WAT, and below the WAT. The polarization microscope and rotary viscometer were applied to measure the effects of the particle size of the dispersed phase and waxy crystal distribution on the oil/water emulsion viscosity. The results suggest that preparing the temperature for crude oil emulsion with high wax content has an important influence on the emulsion microstructure. This study lays the foundation for further study of oil/water two phase dynamic wax deposition experiments.