ABSTRACT
The crude oil present in its natural background cannot be used right away- the emulsions and dissolved substances present in the oil can result in undesirable chemical reactions during processing, unwanted by-products, damage of refinery equipment like distillation columns, and reduced quality of the end products. The basic principle of demulsification is to break down the emulsifying film formed around the water droplets immersed in oil. Several methods can be used to achieve this, which can be used singly or combined with other methods. This research was done to stabilize and optimize the demulsification process of water in oil emulsion using non-ionic surfactants. A combination of experimental and numerical analysis was used to study the impact of parameters like dosage of surfactant, solvent concentration, pressure, temperature, and retention time on the dehydration efficiency of the emulsion. The results established the findings of theoretical studies that the surfactant temperature, time, and dosage are 0.251 mg/L, 25.113 mL, 1.018 m/s2, 68.188 °C, 5.535 min, 8.025% significant in the dehydration of the emulsion. These factors enable more excellent removal of the dispersed medium, water, from the oil emulsion. This is calculated by analyzing the change in the dehydration percentage for different values of parameters. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2023.04.421