Fuel 150 (2015) 705710

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Fuel
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New methodology for heavy oil desalination

Cristina M.S. Sad a, vina L. Santana a, Milton K. Morigaki a, Edna F. Medeiros a, Eustquio V.R. Castro a,
Maria F.P. Santos b, Paulo R. Filgueiras a,
a
Federal University of Esprito Santo, Chemistry Department, Laboratory of Research and Development of Methodologies for Analysis of Oils LabPetro, Av. Fernando Ferrari,
514, Goiabeiras, P.O. Box 29075-910, Vitria, Esprito Santo, Brazil
b
North Center University of Esprito Santo, Rod North BR101, Km 60, Coastal District, So Mateus 29932-540, Esprito Santo, Brazil

h i g h l i g h t s
 Development of a new methodology to heavy crude oils desalination.
 Monitoring of the desalted crude oil by ionic conductimetry.
 About 99.87% of the salt present in the oil was removed.
 TAN and sulfur content were reduced by around 30% after the desalination process.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 15 October 2014
Received in revised form 16 February 2015
Accepted 17 February 2015
Available online 27 February 2015
Keywords:
Heavy crude oil
Total salinity index
Heavy oil desalination

a b s t r a c t
The salts present in petroleum interfere in the characterization of its physicochemical properties, and
from the measurements of these properties is established the price of crude oil. Therefore the water
and salt need to be removed before these analyses. A new desalting apparatus was developed for heavy
crude oils desalination by using demulsier with water. The desalination process is accomplished in several washing steps and the extracted oil salts are monitored by ionic conductivity. Operational conditions
were studied before and after the desalting process and the following parameters were evaluated: density, kinematic viscosity, total salinity index, total sulfur, total acid number and ionic conductivity. Using
the proposed process it was possible to reduce the chloride content in the crude oil to values lower than
43 mg kg1 of sodium chloride in petroleum with extraction efciency about 99.87%. After the desalination process it was not observed signicant changes in the intrinsic oil properties, and after the fourth
wash of the oil there was a reduction of approximately 33% of total sulfur and total acid number content.
These results indicate an improvement in oil quality, once the presence of sulfur compounds in the oil is
undesirable because it increases the polarity of the oil, thereby increasing the polarity of the emulsions.
These compounds are also responsible for the corrosivity of the petroleum products and produce harmful
gases during combustion. Variations about 2% in API gravity and 3% in kinematic viscosity were not signicant, indicating no change in the physical properties of the oils. The proposed procedure is faster
(about 80 min) than the salt extraction method given by ASTM D6470 (about 140 min) for four washing
cycles and it was possible to obtain a suitable condition for salt removal from heavy crude oil emulsions
without toxic reagents.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Crude oil is a naturally occurring mixture consisting predominantly of hydrocarbons and organic sulfur derivatives, nitrogen, oxygen and metals, and may usually be accompanied by
variable amounts of saline water or produced water, and inorganic
gases [1]. The produced water found in the oil must be removed
because it usually has a high concentration of salts in its
Corresponding author. Tel.: +55 02740097735.
E-mail address: lgueiras.pr@gmail.com (P.R. Filgueiras).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2015.02.064
0016-2361/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

composition and form emulsions with viscosities greater than

the dehydrated oil that cause problems such as: changes in the
pumping system sizing and transfer, corrosion in the rening towers, fouling in pipelines, higher consumption of chemicals and
energy, need of new design of equipment throughout the production process, transportation and rening issues [2,3].
The chemical composition of the salts present in the oils is often
found as salts of sodium, calcium and magnesium chloride, in a
lower proportion of sulfates. The amount of mineral salts varies
according to the geologic formation of the source rock and can
be as high as 200,000 mg L1 [47]. The processes of water removal

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C.M.S. Sad et al. / Fuel 150 (2015) 705710

or dehydration processes also result in removal of salts [7,8]. The

water-in-crude oil emulsions for heavy oils (API gravity around
16) are normally more stable than the ones for light oils [3], and
separation of liquid phases involves breaking of the emulsion that
is a fundamental step for the preparing of oil distillation. Various
processes that are used to break the emulsion with removal of
water, salts and solids can be mentioned: gravitational separation,
electrostatic separation, demulsication, chemical ltration forced
by glass wool lter, membrane separation, microwave and ultrasound [5,6,811].
In industrial oil processing, the typical water-in-crude oil
separation methods are not applied in isolation, they often occur
in association with other methods for desalting oil. As an example,
we can mention the gravitational separation, which in most cases
is used together with the chemical treatment (using demulsiers)
and in some cases heat treatment [4]. The last one includes the
application of heat, which has the effect of reducing the kinematic
viscosity of the oil and increase the kinetic energy of oil molecules
facilitating their separation from water. This facilitates settling
and, consequently, salt water separation. Heat also causes changes
in the colloidal stability of droplets promoted by emulsifying
agents, helping to destabilize the emulsion [4,5]. Another feature
is the use of chemical demulsiers, which adsorb on the waterin-crude oil interface and change its physicochemical properties,
promoting coalescence of water droplets. The demulsiers are
nonionic polymeric surfactants which contain a hydrophilic and a
lipophilic portion. Hydrophilic are included as parts of ethylene
oxides, hydroxyl, carboxyl and amine groups. Among the properties that are sought in demulsiers it can be mentioned the high
speeds of adsorption in oilwater interface, movement of natural
emulsiers that stabilize emulsions and the formation of thin
and weak lms in the oilwater interface [12,13].
An efcient water-in-crude oil separation method must use heat
and some demulsier to break the emulsion stability. But, it is also
necessary to characterize and evaluate the oil through some physicochemical properties such as density (API gravity), kinematic viscosity, total salinity index (TSI), sulfur content, total acid number
(TAN) among others. Oil samples with high water content and consequently high amounts of salts render an effective characterization
impossible because high concentrations of salts may interfere in the
evaluation of physical and chemical properties of the oils [14]. From
the measurements of the physicochemical properties is established
the price of crude oil, storage and transport conditions.
It is reported that the difculty of breaking water in oil emulsions of heavy oils is due to the inefciency of the existing tools
for the treatment and monitoring of the salt content in oil. So, it
is necessary to make efforts in order to seek how to make the salt
extraction process efcient, economic and sustainable [15]. Some
laboratory methods are commonly used to extract and quantify
salts in oil, as example the method based on titration with silver
nitrate by precipitation (Mohr) [14], conductimetry [15] and
potentiometric titration [9,16]. These methods are used for the
quantication of salt content in oil. However, these methods are
not effectively applicable to heavy oils and they are also destructive methods, i.e. using toxic organic or inorganic reagents, generating nal product as chemicals waste associated with the oil that
is undesirable for the products and the environment [69,17]. In
this sense, it is necessary to promote the separation of wateroil
emulsions and remove the salts present in the heavy crude oils
in order to obtain condent results for their physicochemical characterization through the classic methods. Therefore, in this paper
we describe a developed apparatus that allows desalting heavy
crude oils using washing with deionized water and commercial
demulsiers, under continuous stirring and temperature control.
The novelty of this process is the combination of heating control
with chemical demulsiers addition and subsequent removal of

water by gravitational separation and simultaneous measurement

of the salt content signal by conductimetric technique.
2. Methodology
2.1. Treatment of crude oil samples
In this study, it was used nine heavy crude oils samples from
production elds located in the sedimentary basin of the Brazilian
coast, identied as A, B, C, D, E, F, G , H and I.
The oil samples were collected from ducts in 2.0 L asks and were
transported to the laboratory where they were processed within
two hour after arrival. The standard method ASTM D5854 [18]
was followed for all procedures using one aliquot of the collected
crude oils. In the oil characterization process, non-emulsied water
in the oil (called free water) is easily separated by applying the
gravitational method which requires decanting the oil for one hour.
After free water separation, aliquots from oil phase (emulsion) were
collected for the characterization procedure before and after desalination process using the developed apparatus shown in Fig. 1. The
water content analysis [19] in the oil emulsions was determined.
For initial characterization, oils with water content above 1% (v/v)
were dehydrated with the addition of 200 lL of a concentrated
commercial demulsier at 60 (5) C commonly used in the primary processing of oils and centrifuged at 1600 (20) rpm for 15 min
[5]. These oils were denominated as dehydrated oils. After
removal of water, to verify that the dehydration procedure was
effective, the water content in oil emulsion was again determined
to verify that the water content was lower than 0.5% (v/v). Then,
the physicochemical properties of the dehydrated oils: total salinity
index (TSI), API gravity, total acid number (TAN), sulfur content and
kinematic viscosity were determined according to the ASTM standard methods.
2.2. Crude oil characterization
2.2.1. Water content
The water content was determined by potentiometric Karl
Fischer (KF) titration, in accordance with the ASTM D4377 standard method [19]. The solvent used during the analysis was a

Fig. 1. Desalting apparatus at laboratory.

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C.M.S. Sad et al. / Fuel 150 (2015) 705710

mixture of dry methanol and chloroform 20% (v/v). For standardization of the KF reagent, distilled water was solubilized into the
solvents. A Metrohm KF titrator (model 836 Titrando) equipped
with a double-platinum electrode was employed during the water
content determination procedure. The ASTM D 4377-06 standard
method covers results in the range from 0.02% to 2% (v/v) of water
in oil. Samples with results above this limit can be analyzed by the
technique, but are not covered by this standard.
2.2.2. Total salinity index (TSI)
The TSI in the oils was determined by extracting the salts using
a mixture of solvent and water (optimized method) [9]. The subsequent analysis of the aqueous phase was performed by potentiometric titration, and the NaCl content was obtained by
potentiometric titration with the use of the digital automatic
analyzer Metrohm 809.
2.2.3. API gravity
The API gravity was determined according to ASTM D5002 [20]
and ASTM D1250 [21]. First, the density was determined by injecting a sample into the digital automatic densimeter analyzer Anton
Paar model DMA 5000. The measurements were conducted at
50 C then estimated at 20 C for calculating the API gravity.
2.2.4. Total acid number (TAN)
The TAN was determined by potentiometric titration of the
crude oil with an alcoholic potassium hydroxide (KOH) solution.
Prior to each titration crude oil samples were dissolved in a 50%
(v/v) toluene/isopropanol solution [22]. The same automatic titration used for Karl Fischer analysis (Metrohm 836 Titration) was
employed for the total acid number determination. However, this
one was equipped with an electrode combination suitable for
non-aqueous titrations.
2.2.5. Total sulfur content
The total sulfur content was determined according to the ASTM
D4294 [23] by energy-dispersive X-ray uorescence spectrometry
using the automatic analyzer HORIBA, model SFLA-2800. Three
calibration curves were built (0.0050.100% (w/w), 0.051.00%
(w/w), and 0.34.0% (w/w)), using 10 sulfur patterns in mineral
oil bought from INSTRU-MED, which were automatically selected
by the equipment in agreement with the sample to be analyzed.
The calibration curve verication was accomplished through the
analysis of a diesel reference sample, with seven repetitions.
2.2.6. Kinematic viscosity
The kinematic viscosity was determined according to the ASTM
D7042-04 [24]. It was analyzed by injecting a sample into the digital automatic viscosimeter analyzer Anton Paar Stabinger SVM
3000. It was measured at 50 C and 60 C then estimated at 40 C
by regression [25]. In the sector for exploration and production
of crude oil, kinematic viscosity is usually evaluated at 40 C, but
for very viscous oils their direct measurement at this temperature
generates large errors. Thus for these oils it is measured at two
higher temperatures and the value extrapolated to 40 C.
2.3. Desalting apparatus
The prototype of the developed Desalting apparatus (Fig. 1) consists in a glass ask with a volumetric capacity of 3 L: 360 mm high
and 20 mm wide with three 24/40 joints. At the bottom of the ask
there is a ow valve (tap) with dimensions 45 mm long and 25 mm
wide for liquid output. The transfer of the washing water (water
with demulsier) into the ask was performed using a glass funnel.
The glass ask has a NiCr (composition 80/20) wire and capacitance of 3.5 Ohm m1. The NiCr wire is attached to small glass

spheres around the bottle ask. The electric current passes through
the NiCr wire and heats the emulsion (washing solution with oil),
keeping them at 60 (5) C. The voltage is monitored by a digital
multimeter, 220 volts, allowing rigorous temperature control.
At the central joint of the desalting apparatus, there is a glass
rod with dimensions 55 mm long and 25 mm wide attached to a
blade with a half-moon Teon with dimensions of 16.5 mm long
and 10.5 mm wide coupled to a mechanical stirrer. To avoid loss of
light organic compounds during the desalination stage, one of the
upper ends has a reux condenser with dimensions of 45 mm in
length and 6.5 mm in width with a constant ow of a refrigerant
uid composed by water and methanol (50% v/v) at 10 C coupled
to a thermostatic bath (Ethik model 521-3D), as showed in Fig. 1.
At each stage of desalination, the ionic conductivity of the
washing water was determined at 25 C in a 50 ml aliquot taken
from the apparatus, with the use of a digital automatic conductometer (Metrohm 856 with a platinum metal electrode).
2.4. Reagents and standard solution preparation
It was used an ultrapure water with resistivity of 18.2 MX and
conductivity 0.05 lS cm1 at 25 C, obtained in a water purication
system Direct Q-UV, manufactured by Millipore. The water used to
wash the oil (called washing water) was prepared adding 250 lL of
a concentrate commercial demulsier commonly used in the primary processing of oils.
The calibration curve of the conductivity versus the salt content
in the aqueous solution was prepared by diluting free water
originated from wells with ultrapure water. Two calibration curves
were prepared, one for very high (above 5000 mg kg1) and other
for low (less than 5000 mg kg1) values of salt content (Fig. 2).
2.5. Desalination process
The desalination process of heavy oils in the desalting apparatus
occurs by removing brine from the water in oil emulsions by washing it with the washing water prepared as described above, which
was previously tested in the efciency of breaking the wateroil
emulsion in heavy oils. The demulsier used was a surfactant composed of copolymers (ethylene oxidepropylene oxide) with different molar ratios. The role of the demulsier is to reduce the
interfacial tension between oil and water, promoting coalescence
of the saline water droplets. The process consisted in heating
500 ml of the oil at a temperature of 60 (5) C with continuous
stirring of 150 (5) rpm for 15 min. After 5 min of resting with
complete phase separation (water/oil), the process of removing salt
was monitored by ionic conductivity of an aliquot of 50 ml of
washing water with a platinum electrode. The desalination process
efciency was achieved when the ionic conductivity of the washing water is below 1000 lS cm1 based on the calibration curve.
Then, it was calculated the concentration of salts in the washing
water by calculating the applied conductivity value in the linear
curve equation of the calibration. At each stage of desalination,
the total salinity index in the oil was also determined so as to evaluate the efciency of desalination according to Eq. (1). After the
fourth washing stage, the oil was centrifuged to remove any residual washing water, then it was performed the characterization
of the physicochemical properties: TSI, API gravity, TAN, total sulfur and kinematic viscosity at 40 C in the dry oil.

Efficiency 1 

TSIADA
TSIBDA

where TSIADA is after desalination average and TSIBDA is before

desalination average, determined from the conductivity of the
aqueous phase from the washing water.

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C.M.S. Sad et al. / Fuel 150 (2015) 705710

agitation around 150 (5) rpm inside the glass ask with
temperature controlled at 60 (5) C and in the presence of demulsiers can favor the desalination once it promotes the destabilization of the emulsions. It was observed that the temperature around
of 60 (5) C favored the desalination by decreasing kinematic viscosity. Thus, for an efcient separation of water in oil emulsion and
with minimal loss of light organic compounds, the desalination
process temperature was maintained at 60 (5) C because excessive heat can cause changes in oil properties due to loss of light
organic compounds.
3.2. Evaluation of the desalination process by conductimetric method

Fig. 2. Calibration curve conductivity (lS cm1) vs TSI (mg kg1 NaCl). (a) Curve for
a low concentration of salt and (b) curve for a high concentration of salt.

3. Results and discussion

Analyses were carried to characterize the nine crude oils studied in this work. TSI, API gravity, TAN, total sulfur content and kinematic viscosity of each dehydrated oil sample were measured as
described above, and the results are reported in Table 1. The results
(Table 2) show that the dehydration of the selected samples was
performed with efciency once the nal water content was below
0.25% (v/v).
3.1. Optimum conditions for the desalination of heavy oils
During the desalination process it was found that heavy oils
(API gravity around 16) tend to form stable emulsions with the
water cause of the presence of natural surfactants in major quantity in these oils (eg. resins and asphaltenes) [13]. The mechanical

The desalination process can be monitored by measuring the

ions removed during the washing steps of the oil once the ionic
conductivity is related to the ionic concentration of sodium and
chloride in the water. The process can be monitored using a metallic platinum electrode to determine the conductivity at 25 C. In
Fig. 2 is shown the calibration curve of the conductivity vs TSI.
The efciency of the desalination process can be monitored by
observing the decrease of the ionic conductivity in the washing
water with the increase of the number of washing steps (Fig. 3).
For a better relation of ionic conductivity with the salt content
in the washing water, it was built two calibration curves, one for
low conductivity values (under 5000 lS cm1) and other for high
values (over 5000). This procedure was adopted for a better accuracy of salt content in low concentrations. The two curves presented good linear relation, with a coefcient of determination (R2) of
0.988 for low salt content (Fig. 2a) and 0.997 for high salt content
(Fig. 2b). The two curves are important for monitoring the salt content since the rst washing step of the oil.
The salt content in the oil was determined after each washing
step, with the measurement made in the washing water. The number of washes necessary to reduce the salt varied according to the
amount of initial salt content in each sample. The F oil had a little
different behavior from the others, with a less conductivity
decrease from the second to the third washing step (Fig. 3a). It
was observed that by increasing the number of washes, the salt
content in the samples was reduced. After four washing steps the
average TSI of the samples was reduced to 43 mg kg1 of NaCl
(Fig. 3b). This low salt content could be monitored by the ionic conductivity under 54 lS cm1.
3.3. Desalination efciency of oils by monitoring the physicochemical
parameters
The physicochemical properties in the oils were analyzed and
the results before and after the desalination process were compared. After four washes the ionic conductivity fell in the range
of 54 lS cm1 (Fig. 3a) with average salt content around
43 mg kg1 of NaCl in the washing water (Fig. 3b). The average percentage of the desalination efciency was 99.87%. It can also be

Table 1
Results for physicochemical properties of the petroleum before the desalination process.
Oil
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
Average

Water content % (v/v)

6.92
12.14
8.43
15.35
10.20
18.82
5.15
3.94
2.85
9.31

API gravity
16.8
16.5
16.4
16.7
16.6
16.8
16.2
16.8
16.5
16.6

TSI (mg kg1)

3

28.6  10
33.1  103
28.9  103
39.9  103
35.8  103
40.9  103
31.1  103
19.0  103
34.1  103
32.4  103

Total sulfur % (w/w)

TAN (mg KOH g1)

Kinematic viscosity at 40 C (mm2 s1)

0.5885
0.6801
0.6411
0.5723
0.6541
0.5932
0.6399
0.5604
0.5732
0.5932

3.311
2.799
2.922
3.156
3.021
2.896
3.187
3.056
2.902
3.093

558.78
613.89
589.76
600.45
578.67
625.09
576.88
560.66
589.99
589.76

C.M.S. Sad et al. / Fuel 150 (2015) 705710

709

after the extraction of the salt. In this sense, we see the practical
importance of developing alternative methodologies in order to
provide reliable procedures for the extraction of salts without
changing the properties of oil. The results obtained after the desalination using the desalting apparatus (Table 2) showed that this
method is promising because it does not signicantly alter the
properties of the oil after desalination.
4. Conclusion

Fig. 3. Variation of conductivity by number of washings for each sample (a).

Variation of total salt index by number of washings for each sample (b).

observed in Table 2 that after the fourth wash, in the dehydrated

oils, there was no signicant change in the intrinsic properties of
the oils. There was an average decrease of 33% in the sulfur and
TAN after the four washings. These results indicate an improvement in oil quality, once the presence of sulfur compounds in the
oil is undesirable because it increases the polarity of the oil, thereby increasing the polarity of the emulsions. These compounds are
also responsible for the corrosivity of petroleum products and produce harmful gases during the distillation process [3]. This corrosion is caused in particular by the naphthenic acids however, its
corrosive activity is directly inuenced by the presence of sulfur
in petroleum [26].
A variation of 2.41% in API gravity and 3.25% in kinematic viscosity (Table 2) are not signicant variations, indicating no change
in the physical properties of the oils.
For oil desalination, ASTM standard methods are commonly
used but they need to be adapted to heavy oils [16]. If this adaption
is not properly made it can put in risk all the oil characterization

Table 2
Average results of the physicochemical petroleum properties before and after four
desalination processes.
Physicochemical
properties

Before
desalination
(average)

After
desalination
(average)

Variation after
desalination (%)

Water content % (v/v)

TSI (mg kg1 NaCl)
TAN (mg KOH g1)
API gravity
Viscosity 40 C
(mm2 s1)
Total sulfur % (w/w)

9.31
32.4 . 103
3.093
16.6
580

0.25
43
2.0107
16.2
561

97.32
99.87
33.44
2.41
3.25

0.5932

0.4003

33.08

This study shows the efciency of a new desalting apparatus

developed for heavy oils and this process consists on various washing steps of the oil. It was found that desalination in various steps
is efcient and that there was no signicant loss of organic compounds during the process. It was required from three to four
washes of the oil to reduce their salt content to values around
329 mg kg1 in sodium chloride.
The efciency of the desalination process could be evaluated by
the decay of the ionic conductivity in the washing water during the
desalination process. The salt content in the oil after four washes
was around 43 mg kg1 of sodium chloride, indicating high efciency of the new desalting apparatus. It was observed that the
efciency of salt removal for heavy crude oil emulsions using the
proposed procedure was higher than 99.87% for all investigated
samples. This efcient removal of salts favored a decrease in the
total sulfur and organic acidity due to the removal of hydrolysable
salts present in the samples. The average results of API gravity and
kinematic viscosity were not altered after the desalination process.
Whether maintaining the proposed conditions of agitation, temperature and concentration of demulsiers, the desalination will
occur efciently without changing the relevant physicochemical
properties of the oil and without occurrence of losses of light
organic compounds during desalination.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to Laboratory of Research and Development of Methodologies for Petroleum Analysis (LABPETRO/UFES)
and the PETROBRAS Research Center (CENPES).
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