Laboratory Study of Aqueous Emulsion System Performance in Process of Removing Petroleum Wells Asphaltene

Asphaltene formation and precipitation in crude oil is an extremely serious issue. The most important way to combat this problem in the petroleum fields was using chemical solvents like xylene. This solvent has a lower environmental impact and safety in the extraction process. The purpose of this study was to find an alternative solvent such as aromatic solvent, especially xylene, employing new water-based emulsions. The prepared solvents containing 50-60% water, 30-35% aromatics solvents (xylene, toluene,…), 3-5% co-solvent (kerosene, gasoline, ethanol…), and less than 1% surfactant. In this research, five different kinds of emulsion solvents with various compositions were prepared. Then the tests were achieved at the environmental and oil well (80°C) conditions. The temperature growth was increased the asphaltene solubility in all prepared samples in this study. Also, the results of the experiments on aqueous emulsion solvents show that these solvents have high performance leading to good comparability with aromatics solvents like xylene and toluene. Therefore, the harmful aqueous aromatic solvents can be replaced and reduced harmful effects with suitable aqueous emulsions in the petroleum industries.