Open Access

ARTICLE

The Paraffin Crystallization in Emulsified Waxy Crude Oil by Dissipative Particle Dynamics

by Ruiqiong Wang¹, Tiantian Du², Jinchen Cao^2,*, Guoqiang Wang³

1 Power China Chongqing Engineering Co., Ltd., Chongqing, 400060, China
2 College of Electrical Engineering, Xinjiang University, Urumqi, 830017, China
3 Key Laboratory of Low-Grade Energy Utilization Technologies and Systems, Ministry of Education, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400030, China

* Corresponding Author: Jinchen Cao. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Two-phase flow heat and mass transfer in advanced energy systems)

Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer 2024, 22(1), 129-139. https://doi.org/10.32604/fhmt.2024.047825

Received 19 November 2023; Accepted 14 December 2023; Issue published 21 March 2024

Abstract

With the advancement of oilfield extraction technology, since oil-water emulsions in waxy crude oil are prone to be deposited on the pipe wall, increasing the difficulty of crude oil extraction. In this paper, the mesoscopic dissipative particle dynamics method is used to study the mechanism of the crystallization and deposition adsorbed on the wall. The results show that in the absence of water molecules, the paraffin molecules near the substrate are deposited on the metallic surface with a horizontal morphology, while the paraffin molecules close to the fluid side are arranged in a vertical column morphology. In the emulsified system, more water molecules will be absorbed on the metallic substrate than paraffin molecules, which obstructed the direct interaction between paraffin molecules and solid surface. Therefore, the addition of water molecules hinders the crystallization of wax near the substrate. Perversely, on the fluid side, water molecules promote the formation of paraffin crystallization. The research in this paper reveals the crystallization mechanism of paraffin wax in oil-water emulsions in the pipeline from the microscopic scale, which provides theoretical support for improving the recovery of wax-containing crude oil and enhancing the transport efficiency.

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Keywords

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Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material File

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