The phase behavior and solubilization ability of nonionic surfactant-distillate fraction of crude oil microemulsion system

In this paper, phase behavior in temperature scanning of E1305/distillate fractions/water/n-butyl alcohol microemulsion system were investigated. And the effect of surfactant concentration and oil type on microemulsion solubilization ability was studied. In the research, the content of saturates, aromatics, resins and asphaltenes in distillate fractions of crude oil was analyzed. The change of phase inversion temperature (PIT), solubilized ability and temperature caused by different compositions of distillate fraction was investigated. According to the experimental results, the phase behavior of temperature scanning was Winsor I -> Winsor III -> Winsor II. The ability of solubilizing microemulsion was improved by increasing the surfactant content. The temperature of optimum solubilization was decreased with the increase of surfactant content. When the type of oil phase was changed, the solubilized ability of microemulsion was decreased with the increase of distillation temperature. And the optimum solubilization temperature was increased. According to the results, this phenomenon was caused by the increase of wax content and equivalent alkane carbon number.