This is to certify that I am responsible for the work presented in this project, that the original work is my own, except as specified in the references and acknowledgments, and that the original work contained herein was not undertaken or done by unspecified sources or persons . The acid concentration in the crude can be determined by the total acid number (TAN) value. In this project, the author used two ILs with different bases to extract the acid in the crude oil sample.
Under these parameters and the chemicals used, the author will study the rate of acid removal from saline media. The results of this project show that ionic liquid can be used to extract organic acid from the crude oil. Under her supervision, I manage to understand the knowledge and make progress in this project.
As a result, the author managed to achieve good results and achieved the set goals. The author would also like to express his appreciation to Nasir Shah for his assistance during the implementation of the project. Secondly, I also want to thank my parents, all lecturers and dear friends who have supported me a lot in these 5 years of my studies in Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS.
Finally, the author would like to express his greatest thanks to Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) for providing the necessary facilities to carry out the project.
INTRODUCTION
- BACKGROUND STUDY
- PROBLEM STATEMENT
- OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE OF STUDY
- RELEVANCY AND FEASIBILITY OF THE PROJECT
Corrosion can cause damage to plant and equipment due to the high amount of acid, namely naphthenic acid (NA). As a result, oil and gas companies spent billions of dollars on maintenance and repair costs. In this project, the author used ionic liquid to study acid extraction from crude oil.
Over the past few years, preliminary studies and research have shown that ionic liquids can be effectively used for acid recovery. Entitled "Deacidification from Salinity", the author truly believes that this research can benefit the oil and gas industry. Furthermore, with further research and experiments by the author, this project may further increase the efficiency of ionic liquids as a solvent for organic acid extraction in crude oil.
The time given was used to do research and experiments to get results. Pilus as the supervisor of the author and her resources, the project is completed within the time frame.
LITERATURE REVIEW
CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF LITERATURE
Many studies have been done to mitigate this corrosion problem due to the presence of naphthenic acid in crude oil. Common industry practices to overcome the problems consist of mixing with sweet crude or washing with caustic solution to reduce the acid level, adding corrosion inhibitors and using expensive corrosion-resistant construction material for the processing unit [ 3]. Previous methods used include dilution or caustic washing methods to reduce the TAN number of heavy crude oil [2].
But these methods proved to be unsatisfactory due to their expensive cost, unsuitability for bulk conditions and due to the production of heavy crude oil continuing to increase in volume. A new class of solvents, namely ionic liquids, has recently shown promising applications in reducing the acidity of crude oil [3]. Ionic liquids refer to salt in a liquid state and exist over a wide temperature range.
Ionic liquids were observed to be suitable for the separation of aromatic hydrocarbons from mixtures of aromatic and aliphatic hydrocarbons [7]. The acid removal rate when using ionic liquids such as 1-n-butyl-3-methylimidazolium with various anions has been proven to be as high as 99% [3]. In the oil and gas industry, pipeline is the common means of transportation used to transfer the crude oil from one location to another.
Since the crude oil contains acid, it can damage the pipeline in the long term. The pipeline corrosion is a more difficult phenomenon that occurs due to the instantaneous action of some rhetorical behavior of the crude oil [9]. There are many types of corrosion that have occurred in the oil and gas industry, such as sweet and acid corrosion, galvanic corrosion, erosion corrosion, and stress corrosion cracking in the oil and gas industry [10].
The corrosion can occur in the refinery system such as furnace tubes, transfer line, tower packing, pump interval, valves and fittings [8]. This iron sulfide can inhibit the naphthenic acid corrosion as it can provide a protective layer (at low temperature) inside the pipeline wall. So increase the content of NA and iron sulphide will cause clogging in the pipeline.
METHODOLOGY
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Fixed parameters refer to parameters that are fixed throughout the execution of the project while manipulative parameters refer to different parameters applied to the samples for different experiments. In this project, two ILs with different bases are used to test on the raw samples which refer to experiment 5 and 7. Experiment 2 and 3 will represent the study of the types of solvent for extracting the IL-NA layer.
Apart from that, experiment 7, 8 and 10 show the effect of the time taken to perform the process.
PROJECT ACTIVITIES
RESULT & DISCUSSION
DATA GATHERING & ANALYSIS
From the above calculation, it can be observed that the amount of acids added to the crude oil samples is 0.0006 mol, while the amount of ionic liquid used to neutralize the acid is only 0.0004 mol. This is because we do not want all the acid to be neutralized by the ionic liquid as we would like to study the amount of acid extracted under gas chromatography. In this project, the author is able to study the efficiency of both solvents in separating the IL-NA layer from the crude oil layer.
RESULTS & DISCUSSION
The author is able to study the effect of salinity on acid extraction in crude oil samples using experiment 1 and 2 from table 2. Based on Figure 7, it can be observed that the concentration of salinity has an effect on the total acid number and acid reduction. The ionic molecule is able to react with the organic molecule in the crude sample.
Temperature and mixing speed play an important role in determining the efficiency of the reaction and extraction process in this project. High temperature will give more energy to molecules to collide and break bonds with other molecules. Due to the low degree of mixing, the molecules will interact less and collide with each other due to the lower energy on the molecules.
The time taken to perform the processes plays an important role as it relates to each process. This is because over time, the efficiency of the process will increase. The results obtained may be from the expected due to the fact that there is error while conducting the experiments.
Methanol is used as a solvent to extract and separate the layer between the crude oil and the ionic liquid naphthenic acid (IL-NA). This is because methanol consists of short-chain molecules that make it difficult to dissolve in the hydrocarbon. Other solvents such as water are used to study the efficiency of the separation phase between crude oil with IL-NA.
Based on figures 11 and 12, the author studies the amount of acid extracted by gas chromatography. Two types of organic acid are used in this project, namely hexanoic acid and dodecanoic acid. Based on the results obtained, it can be observed that hexanoic acid is the most extracted acid compared to dodecanoic acid.
CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS
The effects of salinity on naphthenic acid toxicity to yellow perch: gill and liver histopathology of ecotoxicology and environmental safety. Journal and research paper on naphthenic acid, ionic liquid and mechanism of extraction of acid.
