AmericanChemicalSociety.com

Demulsification of water-in-oil emulsion is an important issue in petroleum production. The current practice often relies on heavy usage of chemical demulsifiers, which are consumable, environmentally unfriendly, and prone to interfere with subsequent processes. In this project, we explore the demulsification of water-in-oil emulsion using hydrophilic nanofibres implanted on hydrophobic surfaces. The working mechanism is inspired by amphiphilic copolymers, a type of chemical demulsifiers previously proven to be effective.

During the second year of our project, our research efforts have been continuously devoted to the two aspects identified during the first year of the project. One is the nano-planting process, which can immobilize 1D nanoparticles, such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and MnO₂ nanorods on the surface. We have identified high voltage electrophoretic deposition (HVEPD) as the method to do so and successfully demonstrated that CNTs and MnO₂ nanorods can be vertically aligned on the substrate with this IC-compatible process under room temperature. This capability has been demonstrated by characterizing the vertically aligned nanoforests with superhydrophobicity, high electrochemical capacitance and the capability to bridge two separate electrodes. A conference paper has been presented to PowerMEMS '09 (Dec. 2009 at Washington DC). A journal paper has also been submitted to Langmuir. This process will be further explored to identify proper material for the hydrophilic nanofiber and hydrophobic substrate surface to provide the sample for demulsification testing. On the other hand, superhydrophilic treatments are explored to modify the surface property of potentially material for hydrophilic nanofiber. Both plasma treatment of polyester and electrochemical treatment of ITO glass have been demonstrated to generate a superhydrophilic surface with anti-fogging and anti-fouling capability. The results have been published in journal paper in Journal of the Association for Laboratory Automation(JALA). We have requested to extend our project for anther year to examine the proposed demulsification mechanism in the near future.