Amphiphilic Choline Carboxylates as Demulsifiers of Water-in-Crude Oil Emulsions

Abstract

AbstractWater/oil emulsions are formed in oil wells due to the presence of natural surfactants. As water/oil phase separation is necessary before oil refining, demulsifiers are used to break water/oil emulsions. In this work, environmentally friendly ionic surface-active choline carboxylates were synthesized from anionic exchange involving choline chloride under microwave dielectric heating. Microwave irradiation was also employed as a fast method for following the kinetics of the demulsification process with the synthesized demulsifiers. Choline palmitate showed the best performance as demulsifier.