Oil Dehydration System Using Microfluidic Channel with Coating of Graphene Electronics
Authors: Al Shehhi A. , AlMarzooqi F. , Al Harethi S. , Al Hammadi I. , Saadat I. 
Published: November 2017

Oil and Gas industry faces challenges to meet the required oil specifications which will lead to invest in installing various process facilities at the upstream to meet these specifications such as basic sediment & water (BS&W) and salt content. However, there are various chemicals that might be existent in the oil fluid such that will effect on the content of the different components leads to control of the required oil specifications. Emulsion is one of these chemicals which is referring to the droplet oil in water and water in oil.

Emulsion refers to a fine dispersion of minute droplets of oil in another fluid in which it is not soluble or miscible such as water. The tightness of emulsion will have an excessive effect towards the required facility to break/ separate it from the fluid such as inject demulsifier inhibitor, installing heat exchanger or installing an oil dehydration system (Separator).

This paper will represent a joint research conducted by Masdar Institute in collaboration with ADCO, to propose a new nanotechnology to separate/break the emulsion in order to overcome or reduce the effect of the emulsion which will lead to optimize the surface facilities cost. Microfluidics Channel Surface Coating of electronics will be introduced in the facilities for this purpose of optimization as a nanotechnology. It is working based on applying a voltage and forming an electromagnetic field in the fluid, such will lead to collide between droplets and eventually will be separated.

Graphene and its modified forms are considered to be a good example of recent unconventional surfactants, which will help in stabilizing emulsion systems. It has a unique sensing/electronic properties which will strongly influence by different kind of forces resulting from the surface charge density (Electrostatic), along with its own chemical stability and ability to be used in corrosive and hostile environment required in the facilities.

The graphene films are synthesized and optimized either by using Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) reactor in various substrates with different surface finishes or using Inkjet Printing.

Our current results include the process of the graphene deposition either using Inkjet and/or Chemical vapor deposition tool (CVD) fabrication in Masdar’s Labs. This included the development of the various processing steps, design and fabrication of graphene coated microfluidic channel. Also, the main focus on this study is to integrate the microfluidics with graphene to be able to utilize it is properties in a good manner. This was followed up with development and characterization of the performance in various environments including water and oil. These results have demonstrated the capability of graphene and the developed microfluidics, as an active material, to separate/break the emulsion. The characterization for the microfluidics will be done using various tools. Additional characterization assessments using different tool such as SEM are ongoing and the results will be reported accordingly.