Phase Separation of Water in Oil Emulsion Using Electro-Pulse Inductive Coalescer

An initial study of the effect of electrostatics on coalescence has been made with the view of improving the separation process in liquid-liquid dispersion. The equipments used were a laboratory scale mixing device, electrostatic Coalescer with gravity settler and a Lasentec device. Rapid breakage of liquid membrane emulsions is attractive for the industrial application of liquid membrane extraction and in Crude oil dehydration and desalting. The electrostatic emulsion breakage process was investigated with regard to its parameters. The outcome gives an idea about the breakage efficiency, which increases with strength of applied field, frequency, and attainable polarization of the membrane phase molecules. The separation of water-in-oil emulsion is achieved by using AC, DC, pulsed DC electric field. Mechanistically, each field type performs differently in promoting phase separation by droplet coalescence.