Experimental Investigation of the Suitability of Allanblackia Seed Oil and Moringa Seed Oil Demulsifiers for Emulsion Treatment

Abstract Water production along with crude oil resulting to emulsion formation is inherent and requires adequate separation. Chemical demulsification have been proposed as the best oil-in-water and water-in-oil emulsion treatment method. However, the demulsifier formation materials, time of separation and temperature of separation is still debatable and open for research. This work investigates the effectiveness of Allanblackia seed oil and Moringa seed oil for formulation of demulsifiers and compared with xylene-diesel demlsifier for emulsion treatment. Allanblackia seed oil, Moringa seed oil, xylene and diesel were used to formulate three different demulsifiers(ASO, MSO and XYL) and mixed with emulsion for different volume ratio in mls of 95:5, 90:10,85:15,75:25.A mixture of the emulsion, demulsifiers and emulsifier were stirred, agitated and heated at 40°C, 60°C and 80°C. The water separation were measured from 30minutes to 300minutes at interval of 30minutes. Result shows that increase in the volume of the demulsifiers increases the water separation with respect to separation time. Increase in temperature gradually increases the water separation for xylene demulsifier. Moringa seed oil demulsifier had an increase in water separation from 28°C to 40°C with respect to increase in volume of demulsifier and separation time but mixed (decrease and increase) at higher temperature of 60°C and 80°C with respect to separation time. There was an increase in water separation with respect to separation time and increase in the volume of the demulsifier for Allanblackia seed oil demulsifier. At both room and higher temperature, Xylene demulsifier had the highest level of water separation when compared to Allanblackia and Moringa seed oil demulsifiers. Moringa seed oil demulsifier had better performance at low temperature while Allanblackia seed oil demulsifier was better at higher temperature. Optimum water separation was obtained with the xylene demulsifier.