Destabilization and Separation of Gas Condensate from Wastewater using Different Surfactant Demulsifiers

Abstract An emulsion of hydrocarbon components in water is usually found in the wastewater of refineries. These emulsions may be broken by adding a suitable demulsifier at the proper concentration with the minimum stability. In this study, different surfactant demulsifiers including hydrophilic and hydrophobic groups with different HLB values (KENON 20, KENON 10, KENON 4, KENON 2, MBG, CTAB, SDS, Span 80, Span 60, PEG, polyamide, polyacrylamide and an EO/PO block copolymer of dodecan-1-ol) were employed for the destabilization and separation of gas condensate droplets in water emulsion. The results revealed that the demulsifiers KENON 2, polyamide, EO/PO block copolymer of dodecan-1-ol and polyacrylamide were effective materials for the destabilization of the emulsion. Additionally, the addition of these demulsifiers leads to growing gas condensate droplets from 5 to about 25 μm showing a very good growth. Moreover, the results showed that the maximum separation of gas condensate from the emulsion were obtained using polyamide and dodecan-1-ol which was approximately 45 vol.% after 2 h at a concentration of 300 ppm of demulsifiers. Furthermore, the maximum gas condensate separation of 70 vol.% was obtained using dodecan-1-ol and KENON 2 after 24 h.