Patent ID: 8524081

Claim:
A separation module for separating water from a water and hydrocarbon emulsion comprising a housing having an inlet for the emulsion and respective outlets for water and dewatered hydrocarbon, and a separation media within the housing, wherein the separation media comprises: a fibrous nonwoven coalescence layer for receiving the water and hydrocarbon emulsion and coalescing the water present therein as a discontinuous phase to achieve coalesced water droplets having a coalesced size of at least 1 mm or greater; and a fibrous nonwoven drop retention layer downstream of the coalescence layer having a high BET surface area of at least 90 m 2 /g or greater sufficient to allow the coalesced water droplets to pass through the drop retention layer at the coalesced size of at least 1 mm or greater so that the coalesced water droplets are capable of being separated from the hydrocarbon at a downstream side of the separation media.