Petroleum Science and Technology, 23: 649667, 2005

Copyright Taylor & Francis, Inc.

ISSN 1091-6466 print/1532-2459 online
DOI: 10.1081/LFT-200033001
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES UNIVERSITY
Water-in-Crude Oil Emulsion Stability Investigation
Mamdouh T. Ghannam
Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, College of Engineering,
United Arab Emirates University, Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates
Abstract: The water-in-crude oil emulsion has great importance in the oil
industry. The stability of water-in-crude oil emulsion is investigated over a
wide range of parameters. These parameters are water concentration (1050%),
surfactant concentration (0.11%), mixing speed (5002,000rpm), salt concentra-
tion (05%), polymer concentration (01,000ppm), and temperature (1340

C).
The physical properties of water-in-crude oil emulsion in terms of density,
viscosity, and interfacial tension are measured by Pycnometer, Ostwald
viscometer, and spinning drop tensiometer, respectively. The stability of water-
in-crude oil emulsion is studied for each case in details. This investigation shows
that the presence of the emulsifying agent is necessary for stable emulsion, and
stability gradually decreases with water concentration. The presence of 5% NaCl
or 1,000ppm of Alcoood polymer provides 100% stable emulsion. Emulsion
stability reduces with temperature. Impeller type has a strong effect on the
emulsion stability. S-curved blade impeller provides 100% stable emulsion for
more than 2 days.
Keywords: Alcoood polymer; Mixing; Salt; Surfactant; Water-in-crude oil
emulsion.
INTRODUCTION
When water is present in an immiscible dispersed droplets phase within
the continuous crude oil phase it usually leads to the formation of
Received October 20, 2003; Accepted December 10, 2003

Correspondence: Mamdouh T. Ghannam, Department of Chemical and

Petroleum Engineering, College of Engineering, United Arab Emirates
University, P.O. 17555, Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates; Fax: 9713 7624262;
E-mail: mamdouh.ghannam@uaeu.ac.ae
650 Ghannam
water-in-crude oil emulsion (W/O emulsion). W/O emulsion is of
great interest in several industrial and environmental applications. Some
examples of these applications are crude oil spillage (Mingyuan et al.,
1992), pipeline transportation of water in heavy crude oil (Pilehvari et al.,
1988), the crude oil production from an oil eld generally associated with
different proportions of water (Carcoana, 1992), and crude oil-polymer
emulsion production during enhanced oil recovery stage (Ghannam, 2003).
There are several other important industrial processes that involve the
production of stable emulsions, such as food industry (e.g., mayonnaise),
detergency (e.g., removal of oil deposits), pharmacy (e.g., drug emulsions),
cosmetics (e.g., skin creams), and agricultural sprays (e.g., pesticides).
Surface active material plays important roles in the formation of
W/O emulsion. The rst function for the surface active material is to
lower the interfacial tension between water and crude oil (i.e., formation
of W/O emulsion). The second function is to stabilize the presence of
the water droplets phase within the oil phase, therefore, preventing the
coalescence mechanism of the water phase (Sherman, 1983). Surface
active material accumulates at the interfacial lm between water droplets
and crude oil to stabilize the water droplets and consequently stabilize
the emulsion.
W/O emulsion stability can be characterized through the conditions
that avoid the coalescence mechanism of small water droplets, the
droplet size range is 110m. Whereas the coalescence will produce
larger water droplets and eventually will lead to unstable W/O emulsion.
The size of water droplets in W/O emulsions has been studied by light
and electron microscopy (Mikula, 1992). Norwegian crude oil formed
emulsion with water droplets size range of 1030m (Sjoblom et al.,
1990), however, the average water droplet size of water in the North Sea
crude oil emulsion is about 10m (Thompson et al., 1985).
In general, an emulsifying agent plays an important characteristic to
stabilize the W/O emulsion. Surface active materials and particles that
are available in a crude oil behave as emulsifying agents to prevent water
separation from a given W/O emulsion. If the concentration of surface
active materials is reasonably high, the coalescence of water droplets will
be avoided (Bobra, 1990; Canevari, 1987; Christopher, 1993; Eley et al.,
1976; Fingas et al., 1995; Mackay, 1987).
The present study is aiming to investigate the effect of various
factors on the stability behavior of W/O emulsion. These factors are
the water concentration, mixer speed, salt concentration, surfactant
concentration, polymer concentration, and temperature.
EXPERIMENTAL WORK
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the stability of W/O
emulsion. Several parameters will be investigated in this study. W/O
Water-in-Crude Oil Emulsion Stability Investigation 651
emulsion is prepared by high speed mixing of gradually adding certain
amounts of water into crude oil containing 1% surfactant material.
250mL of W/O emulsion was prepared in a mixing container using
a laboratory high-speed mixer. Several mixer speeds of different times
are covered to prepare the W/O emulsion. The prepared samples of
emulsion were placed into graduated glass cone-containers to measure
the amount of water separated over 48hours.
Crude oil from Bu-Hasa oil eldUnited Arab Emirates is used in
all of the W/O emulsion investigation. The physical properties of the
employed crude oil are given in Table 1.
Nonionic surfactant of Triton X-100 (iso-Octylphenoxypolyethoxy
ethanol from BDH Middle East L.L.C.United Arab Emirates) was
employed as an emulsifying agent in the concentration range of 01% by
volume.
Alcoood polymer material of AF1235 (from Ciba Specialty
Chemicals, Bradford, West Yorks, England) was used to prepare
polymer aqueous solution with two different concentrations of 500 and
1,000ppm. This polymer solution is used to form an emulsion with
crude oil to study the effect of polymer presence on W/O emulsion
stability behavior. Alcoood polymer of AF1235 is high molecular
weight polyacrylamide copolymer with bulk density of 800kg/m
3
and
intrinsic viscosity of 12.
Zeiss optical microscope is used to examine the emulsion
characteristics, droplets distribution, and water-crude oil droplets
interaction of W/O emulsion. The computer image analyzer system
(CIAS) from Kontron ElektronikGermany consists of a high-resolution
videocamera mounted on an optical polarizing microscope, an image
processor, a Pentium PC, a high-resolution image monitor. In addition,
the CIAS has a powerful facility to enhance the captured image in terms
of sharpening, edge detection, threshold function, transition lter, chord
sizing, and dilation.
The physical properties of W/O emulsion are necessary to
investigate to provide some insight about the water droplets phase within
the continuous phase of crude oil. These properties are density, viscosity,
and interfacial tension between crude oil and water. Pycnometer is used
to measure density, Ostwald viscometer is employed to measure emulsion
viscosity of Newtonian behavior, and spinning drop tensiometer is
Table 1. Physical properties of Bu-Hasa crude oil
Density @ 25

C, kg/m
3
827
Dynamic viscosity @ 25

C, mPas 4.79
Asphaltene content, wt% 0.42
Sulphur content, wt% 1.33
652 Ghannam
Table 2. Physical properties of W/O emulsions
Density Viscosity IFT
W/O emulsion Kg/m
3
mPas mN/m
10/90 833 4.1 43.5
20/80 849 3.7 43.5
30/70 874 3.2 43.5
40/60 893 2.7 43.5
50/50 908 2.3 43.5
used for interfacial tension (IFT) measurements. However, for non-
Newtonian emulsion behavior RheoStress RS100 rheometer is used to
investigate the viscosity behavior of W/O emulsion in the presence of
500 and 1,000ppm Alcoood polymer material of AF1235. Tables 24
show all the physical properties of all the prepared W/O emulsions.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The water-in-crude oil emulsion has great importance in the oil industry,
such as in heavy crude oil transportation, presence of water within
the produced crude oil, and presence of Alcoood polymer solution
within crude oil. The stability of W/O emulsion is investigated under
the inuence of numerous parameters and conditions. These parameters
and conditions are the water concentration, surfactant concentration,
mixing speed, salt concentration, Alcoood polymer concentration, and
temperature.
Water Concentration
Wide range of water concentration is covered in this study over the
range of 1050% by volume. Figure 1 shows the percentage of the water
content within the W/O emulsion versus elapsed time for two samples
Table 3. Physical properties of W/O emulsion in presence of salt
NaCl Density Viscosity IFT
W/O emulsion Conc.% Kg/m
3
mPas mN/m
10/90 1 840 5.1 61
10/90 5 849 5.5 33.5
50/50 1 916 2.4 61
50/50 5 930 2.8 33.5
Water-in-Crude Oil Emulsion Stability Investigation 653
Table 4. Physical properties of W/O emulsion in presence of Triton X-100
Triton X-100 Density Viscosity IFT
W/O emulsion % Kg/m
3
mPas mN/m
10/90 0.1 841 3.65 1.31
0.2 845 3.71 1.29
0.5 851 3.78 1.19
1.0 862 3.90 1.10
50/50 0.1 910 2.5 1.31
0.2 914 2.4 1.29
0.5 917 2.3 1.19
1.0 925 2.2 1.10
of water concentration of 10 and 50% W/O emulsions. These samples
are prepared with no surfactant and mixing speed of 2,000rpm for
30min of mixing period. Figure 1 shows that the percentage of water
content within both emulsions drops very signicantly over 15min only.
The water content drops from almost 100% at 1min to 16% and 4%
after 15min for the 10% and 50% water concentration, respectively.
These samples show strong unstable behavior of water within W/O
emulsion. This conclusion can be attributed to the absence of emulsifying
agents within the emulsion. These samples are prepared without any
addition of surfactant materials. Also, this type of crude oil has a very
limited amount of asphaltene content (i.e., 0.42 wt.%). Several studies
Figure 1. Emulsion behavior without surfactant.
654 Ghannam
reported the importance of asphaltenes in W/O emulsions. Brandvik
and Daling (1991) reported that the presence of asphaltene within the
crude oil enhances strongly the stability of W/O emulsion. Sjoblom
et al. (1990) found that very unstable W/O emulsions are produced if
asphaltene content of the original crude oil is removed.
Figure 2 shows the stability behavior of water content versus elapsed
time when 1% by volume of Triton X-100 surfactant was added as an
emulsier for wide range of water concentrations over 20 to 50% by
volume. Surfactant material accumulates at the interfacial lm between
water droplets dispersed phase and crude oil continuous phase. This role
of surfactant stabilizes the water droplets and avoiding the coalescence
mechanism of water droplets phase (Sherman, 1983). Therefore, the
stability of W/O emulsion is strongly enhanced by the addition of
Triton X-100, as can be concluded from Figure 2. For 20% water
concentration, the percentage of water content drops slightly from 100%
at 10min to 95% after 2 days. Therefore, the function of the Triton
X-100 is to help in the formation of W/O emulsion, stabilize the
water droplet dispersed phase for longer time, and delay the coalescence
and separation mechanism of water. Figure 2 shows that when water
concentration increases for the same conditions of mixing speed and
surfactant concentration, the percentage of water content decreases
gradually with elapsed time. This can be attributed to the coalescence
mechanism that enhances gradually when more water is added. In the
case of water concentration of 50% by volume, the percentage of water
content gradually decreases from 98.4% at a 10min period to 24% after
2 days. Table 5 reports the amount of water separated as a function of
Figure 2. Effect of water concentration on W/O emulsion.
Water-in-Crude Oil Emulsion Stability Investigation 655
Table 5. Water separation performance
Reduction % of water content
Water concentration % 1hr 5hr 48hr
20 0 0 5
30 0.667 1.67 16
40 2.5 14 66.5
50 6 22.8 76.8
reduction percentage of water content in W/O emulsion. It shows that
the reduction percentage in water content of W/O emulsion increases
slightly with water concentration at the beginning of the separation
process. However, it increases signicantly with time. After 48hr, only
5% of water content is separated in the case of 20% water concentration,
however, 76.8% of water content is separated in the case of 50% of water
concentration.
Effect of Surfactant Concentration
The presence of surfactant material in W/O emulsion promotes
and stabilizes the water-in-crude oil emulsion. Surfactant molecules
surround the water droplets with a certain arrangement. The polar
hydrophilic portion of the surfactant molecules resides within the
aqueous phase, whereas the hydrophobic end resides within the crude
oil phase. Mackay et al. (1973) found that the water droplets are
encapsulated with surfactant molecules to prevent coalescence of the
water droplets. Figure 3 shows the effect of Triton X-100 on the stability
performance of W/O emulsion for 50% water concentration over
the surfactant concentration of 0.1 to 1.0% by volume. It shows that
the stability performance increases with surfactant concentration. This
can be attributed to the ability of more surfactant molecules to encap-
sulate more of the water droplets to avoid the coalescence mechanism.
Although the stability performance enhanced with surfactant concen-
tration, however, the W/O emulsion is not stable over time. This issue
will be addressed later in this study. Figure 4 shows the same effect
for 10% water concentration. It shows again, the more the addition of
surfactant the better stability is reported up to 0.2% by volume, which
can be explained due to a lower amount of water available (i.e., 10%
only). The stability of water performance of 96% is achieved for a time
period of 5hr in comparison with much less performance and a shorter
period in the case of 50% water concentration.
656 Ghannam
Figure 3. Effect of surfactant concentration on 50% W/O emulsion.
Mixing Speed Effect
Mechanical mixing is one of the well-known methods to form W/O
emulsions from two immiscible phases. Adding the dispersed phase very
slowly to the continuous phase during the mixing process usually offers
Figure 4. Effect of surfactant concentration on 10% W/O emulsion.
Water-in-Crude Oil Emulsion Stability Investigation 657
a big advantage for the emulsication process. The interface between the
dispersed and continuous phases is deformed to form droplets.
At the beginning of the emulsication process, the droplets are
mostly too large. During the mixing process, these large droplets are
broken down into smaller ones due to the disruption process of the
large droplets. Droplets must be deformed to achieve their disruption,
the deformation behavior is opposed by the high Laplace pressure. The
pressure drop, AP, between the concave side and the convex side of a
curved interface is given by:
AP = 2,R (1)
where is the interfacial tension between crude oil and water, and R
is the droplet radius. To break down the large droplet diameter, such
a pressure must be externally supplied over the droplet radius. The
required pressure gradients are supplied by agitation. Eq. (1) shows that
the smaller the droplet, the more amount of agitation should be supplied.
Figure 5 shows the percentage of the water content within the
emulsion versus elapsed time for 50% W/O emulsion in the presence
of 1% surfactant. A wide range of mixing speed is investigated over
the range of 500 to 2000rpm for 30min of mixing period. Figure 5
shows that the more rpm supplied, the more stability is achieved.
It is clear that by increasing the mixing speed, the droplet diameter
decreases signicantly and consequently enhances the emulsion stability.
However, Figure 5 shows a gradual reduction of water content within
Figure 5. Effect of mixing speed on 50% W/O emulsion.
658 Ghannam
the emulsion over time due to the coalescence mechanism between the
water droplets.
After the formation of W/O emulsion, droplets may recombine
together through a occulation process followed by coalescence to form
bigger droplets in which the emulsion stability will be negatively affected.
During the emulsion preparation, it is difcult to predict whether or
not and how fast the coalescence will occur. When water and crude oil
are agitated within a vessel until the emulsion is formed, the surfactant
concentration is consumed due to the generation of a new droplet
surface area. Therefore, the water droplet size often increases slowly,
which results in a change in the initial droplet size distribution. This
process usually leads to the complete separation of the emulsion into two
immiscible water and crude oil phases. The enhancement of the water
content percentage will be investigated in this study in a later section.
Salt Effect
It is necessary sometimes to form W/O emulsions with salty water,
especially for a heavy crude oil pipeline transportation situation, since
saline water is available and much cheaper than fresh water at oil
industry facilities. Therefore, it is important to investigate the role and
the effect of sodium chloride on the stability of W/O emulsion. Figures 6
and 7 show the effect of NaCl concentration on the stability of 50 and
10% W/O emulsions, respectively. One percent NaCl slightly increases
Figure 6. Behavior of 50% W/O emulsion in the presence of NaCl.
Water-in-Crude Oil Emulsion Stability Investigation 659
Figure 7. Behavior of 10% W/O emulsion in the presence of NaCl.
the water content within the W/O emulsion for both concentrations.
However, the addition of 5% NaCl strongly improves the presence of
water content within the emulsion. The presence of 5% NaCl in both
emulsions, 50 and 10% W/O emulsions, enhances the stability of W/O
emulsion to reach 100% for the whole period of the test.
The same experiment was exactly repeated for 50% W/O emulsion
(with the conditions of 5% NaCl, 2,000rpm, and 30min of mixing
period), but without Triton X-100. Although, this sample has 5%
of NaCl concentration, however, it separated completely into water
and crude oil phases within a few minutes. First, these results clearly
showed that the emulsifying performance of Triton X-100 is enhanced
signicantly in the presence of NaCl. Second, the addition of NaCl
lowers the IFT between crude oil and water signicantly, which enhances
the stability of W/O emulsion. Third, increasing the ionic strength
may reduce the electrostatic attraction between the water droplets
and therefore prevents occulation and coalescence of these droplets.
Therefore, the role of NaCl strongly enhances the stability performance
of W/O emulsion and reaches to 100% stability after 48hr for 5% NaCl
concentration. The improvement performance for the presence of NaCl
within W/O emulsion can be calculated using Eq. (2) as:
Improvement % = |(S)
5%NaCl
(S)
0%NaCl
]

100,|(S)
0%NaCl
] (2)
where (S) is the H
2
O content percent. The results of improvement
percent for the presence of NaCl for 10 and 50% W/O emulsions are
listed in Table 6.
660 Ghannam
Table 6. Improvement percentage for the presence of NaCl
Improvement percent
Time, min 10% W/O emulsion 50% W/O emulsion
10 41.2 0.41
20 84.6 0.81
30 118.2 3.33
60 166.7 6.90
120 242.9 18.10
180 242.9 20.40
240 300.0 24.00
300 300.0 30.53
1,440 300.0 230.67
2,880 300.0 350.91
Table 6 shows that the improvement percent increases with time for
both emulsions. The presence of NaCl is more effective in the rst three
hr for the 10% W/O emulsion, whereas, it reports higher improvement
for the 50% W/O emulsion after ve hr.
Polymer Effect
Alcoood polymer of AF1235, water soluble polymer powder, is used
extensively in the enhanced oil recovery stage to extract some of the
trapped oil in the well. Alcoood polymers provide superior handling
characteristics and solubility to enhance injection properties through
reservoir permeability. The main objectives of using Alcoood polymers
are to improve mobility ratio, sweep efciency, and increase recovery and
oil production rates. Therefore, it is necessary to study the role and effect
of the presence of AF1235 in the aqueous phase on the stability of W/O
emulsion. This study covers two different concentrations of aqueous
solution of 500 and 1,000ppm. The viscosity behavior of AF1235
aqueous solutions is studied using RheoStress RS100 from Haake
of cone and plate sensor (cone diameter is 35mm, cone tip gap is
0.137mm, and cone angle is 4

). Figure 8 shows the viscosity behavior

of AF1235 aqueous solution versus shear rate for 500 and 1,000ppm
polymer concentration. The viscosity of the aqueous phase of AF1235
is a strong function of shear rate and polymer concentration. Viscosity
of the aqueous solution of the AF1235 is gradually decreasing with
shear rate showing shear thinning of non-Newtonian behavior for the
concentrations of 500 and 1,000ppm. Figure 9 shows the water content
percent versus elapsed time for 50% W/O emulsion in the presence of
a different concentration of AF1235. Figure 9 shows clearly that the
Water-in-Crude Oil Emulsion Stability Investigation 661
Figure 8. Viscosity behavior of AF1235.
AF1235 strongly enhances the stability of W/O emulsion. The more
Alcoood polymer material is added, the more stable the emulsion
will be. The 1,000ppm of AF1235 provides almost 100% stability
for 50% W/O emulsion. Figure 8 shows that the viscosity of the
Alcoood aqueous phase increases strongly with polymer concentration.
The stability of W/O emulsion enhances signicantly due to the large
increase of viscosity of the aqueous phase (Dalgleish, 1996).
Figure 9. Behavior of 50% W/O emulsion in the presence of AF1235.
662 Ghannam
Polymer, in general, does not have the same ability to lower the
IFT between crude oil and water as the surfactant materials. Nonionic
polymer provides a layer on the droplet surface, in which the W/O
emulsion will be stabilized by a steric repulsion mechanism. Biopolymer
materials introduce signicant viscosity modication or gelation phase,
which strongly stabilizing W/O emulsion. Employing water soluble
polymers is a very efcient technique to avoid coalescence due to the
increase of aqueous phase viscosity. Therefore, the droplets have lower
kinetic energy, in which the collisions mechanism between water droplets
will be less probable (Reichman and Garti, 1991).
Temperature Effect
Temperature plays an important role in the emulsion preparation and its
stability. Temperature inuences many variables such as viscosity of each
phase and solubility of the nonionic surfactant in either phase. Therefore,
it is necessary to study the effect of temperature on the W/O emulsion
stability. Figure 10 shows the effect of temperature on the stability of
W/O emulsion over the temperature range of 1340

C. After one hr of
emulsion preparation, temperature shows a signicant inuence on the
emulsion stability. It shows that the higher temperature slightly reduces
the emulsion stability. Although, the solubilization of crude oil in the
aqueous surfactant solution increases, the viscosity of either phase will
reduce signicantly with temperature. Therefore, the droplets of water
phase will acquire more kinetic energy in which the collisions between
Figure 10. Effect of temperature on 50% W/O emulsion.
Water-in-Crude Oil Emulsion Stability Investigation 663
droplets of water phase will be more common. The collision mechanism
between water droplets is enhanced with temperature, therefore, the
interaction between these mechanisms improves the separation between
the crude oil and water phases, (i.e., lower stability).
Enhancement of Stability Behavior
It is necessary to improve the W/O emulsion stability performance. The
presence of 5% NaCl or 1,000ppm of AF1235 enhances the stability of
W/O emulsion to almost 100% over 48hr. However, all other samples
suffer a signicant drawback in the stability behavior. It is important
for this study to investigate the effect of mixer impeller as well. The
impeller with a helical shape diameter of 1.2cm was used in all previous
emulsions. S-curved blade impeller with a diameter of 2.8cm is used to
investigate the stability of 50% W/O emulsion with conditions of 1%
Triton X-100, 2,000rpm mixing speed, and for a wide range of mixing
time (10 to 50min). The 50% W/O emulsion was selected because it
showed the lowest stability behavior among all samples. Table 7 shows
the stability results as a function of the elapsed time over the time
range of 048hr for the S-curved blade impeller mixer. First of all, it is
very necessary to mention that no water was separated from any tested
sample over the recorded time. Therefore, the stability of W/O emulsion
reaches 100% for all samples (no water was separated). However, over
the time, depending upon the mixing period of 10 to 50min, a light
brown emulsion layer formed underneath the main emulsion layer. The
light brown layer increases slightly with time. Therefore, one can say
this technique achieves stable emulsion for the mentioned conditions
over 48hr with no water separated. The values listed in Table 7 are
Table 7. Stability performance percent using S-curved blade impeller
Mixing period, min
Elapsed time, min 10 20 30 40 50
10 100 100 100 100 100
20 100 100 100 100 100
30 97.5 98.5 99 100 100
60 96.5 97.5 98 100 100
120 95 95.5 97 100 100
180 92 93 95 100 100
240 90.5 91 94 100 100
300 88.5 88.5 92.5 100 100
1440 65.5 66.5 67.5 68 100
2880 64 65 66 68 68.5
664 Ghannam
Table 8. Average diameter of the water droplet
Mixing period, min 10 20 30 40 50
D
sv
, m 11.5 11.0 10.3 9.6 8.8
for the stability of the main emulsion w.r.t. the light brown emulsion.
The growth percent of the light brown layer can be obtained from the
subtraction of 100 minus the listed value in Table 7.
The computer image analyzer system is used to observe the W/O
emulsions prepared with a different time of mixing, 1050min. Several
images were analyzed for each sample over the rst 5hr of elapsed time.
For each sample, the image analyzer shows that the average diameter of
the water droplets within W/O emulsion does not change signicantly
with elapsed time. The Sautor mean droplet diameter D
sv
, Eq. (3), is
measured for these emulsions.
D
sv
=

N
i
D
3
i
,

N
i
D
2
i
(3)
where N
i
is the number of droplets and D
i
droplet diameter. Table 8 lists
the average diameter of the water droplets within W/O emulsion for each
mixing period.
Figure 11 shows some examples of water droplets distribution within
different W/O emulsions for different mixing periods with the conditions
of 2,000rpm, 1% Triton X-100, and 50% water concentration. Table 8
and Figure 11 show that the water droplets average diameter decreases
gradually with time of mixing. The droplets average diameters are 11.5,
10.3, and 8.8m for a mixing period of 10, 30, and 50min, respectively.
The degree of emulsion stability enhances signicantly by decreasing the
droplet diameter. Therefore, for the same mixing speed, the more mixing
time supplied the more stable the emulsion will be.
CONCLUSIONS
From the investigation of W/O emulsion behavior, the following points
are found:
1. The W/O emulsions show strong unstable behavior of water within
the emulsion due to the absence of an emulsifying agent.
2. The stability of W/O emulsion enhances signicantly by the addition
of Triton X-100.
3. Stability of W/O emulsion gradually decreases with water
concentration.
Water-in-Crude Oil Emulsion Stability Investigation 665
Figure 11. Photomicrograph for 50% W/O emulsion.
666 Ghannam
4. Stability of W/O emulsion enhances with Triton X-100 concentration.
Concentrations of 0.2% and 1.0% of Triton X-100 achieved better
performance for 10 and 50% W/O emulsions, respectively.
5. Mixing speed improves the W/O emulsion stability, the more rpm
supplied the more stability of the W/O emulsion is achieved.
6. The role of NaCl strongly enhances the stability performance of W/O
emulsion and reaches to 100% stability for 5% NaCl concentration.
7. The presence of AF1235 strongly enhances the stability of W/O
emulsion.
8. High temperature reduces the W/O emulsion stability.
9. The stability of W/O emulsion reaches 100% by using S-curved blade
impeller.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author is very grateful to the nancial support from the United Arab
Emirates University under the grant # 01-02-7-11/04.
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