The Possible Use of Immiscible Organic Liquids in Pumping and Storage of Crude Oil

摘要

The idea of crude oil treatment with available immiscible liquid while pumping through the pipeline is presented. The vigorous mixing in a turbulent flow is a fair condition for an extraction process. Immiscible glycerine, for example, can extract water, hydrogen sulfide, thiols and other acidic components while pumping oil through the trunk line. While storage, due to glycerine density (1.26 g/ml) the glycerine-water droplets tend to reach towards the bottom. Being introduced into the crude oil flow in the quantity of 3-4 weight percent glycerine can absorb water which content is about 0.5% thus lowering several times the free water concentration. Hydrogen sulfide and thiols will be absorbed by glycerine and glycerine-water phases as well. Glycerine-water-sulfur compounds mixture from the low layer may be separated at external membrane device onto glycerine and water solution apart, then isolated glycerine may be reused. If this were the case the corrosion-active components will be canceled out and the lifetime of the pipeline and oil tanks will be prolonged several times. Another aspect of this idea is a glycerine application for preventing of sludge formation in the oil storage tank. When create glycerine layer at the tank bottom no asphaltenes, no resins and paraffin waxes will penetrate into this layer because of the high glycerine density. And if the glycerine is heated when being circulated through external exchanger the convectional flows inside the tank will carry precipitating solids away from oil-glycerine surface. So, the bottom will be free from the sludge for a long time. Besides the water will be absorbed by glycerine and may be isolated at external membrane device during the crude oil storage. If this idea is valid the far more time between the cleaning procedures of storage oil tank will be enough. The probability of heavy metals isolation from heavy crude is also discussed in this paper. For example, Vanadium organometallic compounds are the most v