TY - JOUR
T1 - Investigations of crude-oil emulsions at the micro-to-nano scales
AU - Ravaux, Florent
AU - Medina, Sandra Constanza
AU - Behzad, Ali Reza
AU - Zafar, Humaira
AU - George, Abraham
AU - Morin, Stephane
AU - Ghaffour, NorEddine
AU - Anjum, Dalaver H.
N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2022-01-27
Acknowledgements: The authors extend their appreciation to Khalifa University’s Faculty Startup (FSU) program for partially funding this research work under the project ID: FSU-2020-04, 2020 and to Abu Dhabi, and to King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the use of cryo-EM equipment.
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - The removal of the micro droplets of emulsified water from crude oil causes high cost and energy. In this paper we show that cryo electron microscopy (cryo-EM) imaging of micro and nano emulsions prepared from United Arab Emirate based crude oil provides critical information on their stability. Specifically, the cryoSEM imaging analysis applied to emulsion of murban-2019, and upper zakum-2019 crude-oils allowed determining naturally occurring surfactants in these crude-oils. Moreover, the applied method also turned out to be an efficient way to qualitatively investigate the effect of synthetic surfactant on the stability of the emulsions. The high resolution cryoTEM imaging analysis of emulsions from upper zakum-2019 sample enabled visualizing “bilayer” of naturally occurring surfactants, presumably the asphaltene. The cryoTEM analysis further allowed estimating the volume-fraction of emulsified water in the crude-oil at nanoscales and turned out to be about 1% for the upper zakum-2019 samples.
AB - The removal of the micro droplets of emulsified water from crude oil causes high cost and energy. In this paper we show that cryo electron microscopy (cryo-EM) imaging of micro and nano emulsions prepared from United Arab Emirate based crude oil provides critical information on their stability. Specifically, the cryoSEM imaging analysis applied to emulsion of murban-2019, and upper zakum-2019 crude-oils allowed determining naturally occurring surfactants in these crude-oils. Moreover, the applied method also turned out to be an efficient way to qualitatively investigate the effect of synthetic surfactant on the stability of the emulsions. The high resolution cryoTEM imaging analysis of emulsions from upper zakum-2019 sample enabled visualizing “bilayer” of naturally occurring surfactants, presumably the asphaltene. The cryoTEM analysis further allowed estimating the volume-fraction of emulsified water in the crude-oil at nanoscales and turned out to be about 1% for the upper zakum-2019 samples.
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/673964
UR - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0016236121025588
U2 - 10.1016/j.fuel.2021.122692
DO - 10.1016/j.fuel.2021.122692
M3 - Article
SN - 0016-2361
SP - 122692
JO - Fuel
JF - Fuel
ER -