Synthesis of the functionalized graphene oxide for efficient demulsification of oil in water emulsion

The crude oil extracted from the oil well contains some water, salt, and other impurities, which cause problems such as corrosion, sedimentation, and clogging in heat exchangers, separation, and refining equipment, as well as deactivation of catalysts in oil refinery units. The amount of water and salt in oil has a certain limit. Therefore, from an economic view point, the separation of salty water from crude oil in the operating units of oil companies is very important. The presence of emulsions is undesirable, demulsification methods such as chemical demulsification are used. To break emulsions and convert them into two separate phases, surfactants which are called demulsifiers are used. The chemical demulsification process is the most famous and widely used method of breaking the emulsion, which is done by injecting small amounts of demulsifier into the fluid. In this research, the destabilization effect of the oil-in-water emulsion was investigated by using graphene oxide-based suspenders. At first, graphene oxide was synthesized by the modified Hummer method. Then, in order to change the hydrophilic-hydrophobic properties of graphene oxide, it was functionalized using octadecylamine. In order to study the removal performance of oil particles from the oil-in-water emulsion, the bottle test was investigated. The results of this research showed that the functionalization of graphene oxide sheets and increasing their hydrophobicity by introducing octadecylamine particles has a significant effect on improving the demulsification performance.