The Influence Faction to the Crude Oil Emulsion Stability

Abstract

At present, the exploited crude oil is about 80% in the presence of crude oil emulsion in the world. More and more research to study stability of the crude oil is developed. Firstly, the basal knowledge of the crude oil emulsion and interfacial film are introduced in this paper. The main reason that crude oil can come into being stable emulsion is it has natural emulsifiers, which can form interfacial film, then the author emphasizes on four natural emulsifiers of the crude oil’s components: asphaltenes, gelatine, paraffine and solid particles, which play very important role in the crude oil emulsion’s stability. The natural emulsifiers, such as asphaltenes, gelatine, can be absorbed between water and oil to form interfacial film that has some visco-elasticity. The stronger is interfacial film, the more stable is the crude oil emulsion.