The possibility of using a water soluble,as opposed to the conventional oil soluble demulsifier, to destabilize a w/o emulsion in crude oil has been explored. It was found experimentally that a surfactant soluble in the water (dispersed) phase could destabilize the emulsion. Polymer molecules with varying HLB's and molecular weights and structure were synthesized and these compounds were added to the water phase to destabilize the water/crude oil emulsions. Molecules with a high percentage of hydrophilic groups and low molecular weights showed very good demulsifying abilities.
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Shetty et al. (1992) studied this question.
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