Remoção de óleo da água de produção por flotação em coluna utilizando tensoativos de origem vegetal

In the petroleum industry, water is always present in the reservoir formation together with petroleum and natural gas and this fact provokes the production of water with petroleum, resulting in a great environmental impact. Several methods can be applied for treatment of oily waters, such as: gravitational vases, granulated media filtration systems, flotation process, centrifugation process and the use of hydrocyclones, which can also be used in a combined way. However, the flotation process has showed a great efficiency as compared with other methods, because these methods do not remove great part of the emulsified oil. In this work was investigated the use of surfactants derived from vegetable oils, OSS and OGS, as collectors, using the flotation process in a glass column with a porous plate filter in its base for the input of the gaseous steam. For this purpose, oil/water emulsions were prepared using mechanical stirring, with concentrations around 300 ppm. The air flow rate was set at 700 cm3/min and the porous plate filter used for the generation of the air bubbles has pore size varying from 16 to 40 Pm. The column operated at constant volume (1500mL). A new methodology has been developed to collect the samples, where, instead of collecting the water phase, it was collected the oil phase removed by the process in the top of the flotation column. It has been observed that it is necessary to find an optimum surfactant concentration to achieve enhanced removal efficiency. Being for OSS 1.275 mmol/L and for OGS 0.840 mmol/L, with removal efficiencies of 93% and 99%, respectively, using synthetic solutions. For the produced water, the removal in these concentrations was 75% for OSS and 65% for OGS. It is possible to remove oil from water in a flotation process using surfactants of high HLB, fact that is against the own definition of HLB (Hydrophile-Lipophile Balance). The interfacial tension is an important factor in the oil removal process using a flotation process, because it has direct interference in the coalescence of the oil drops. The spreading of the oil of the air bubble should be considered in the process, and for the optimum surfactant concentrations it reached a maximum value. The removal kinetics for the flotation process using surfactants in the optimum concentration has been adjusted according to a first order model, for synthetic water as for the produced water.

Modelagem da transferência de massa na remoção do óleo da água produzida por flotação em coluna com uso de tensoativos de origem vegetal

The treatment of oil produced water and its implications are continually under investigation and several questions are related to this subject. In the Northeast Region Brazil, the onshore reservoirs are, in its majority, mature oil fields with high production of water. As this oil produced water has high levels of oil, it cannot be directly discarded into the environment because it represents a risk for contamination of soil, water, and groundwater, or even may cause harm to living bodies. Currently, polyelectrolytes that promote the coalescence of the oil droplets are used to remove the dispersed oil phase, enhancing the effectiveness of the flotation process. The non-biodegradability and high cost of polyelectrolytes are limiting factors for its application. On this context, it is necessary to develop studies for the search of more environmentally friendly products to apply in the flotation process. In this work it is proposed the modeling of the flotation process, in a glass column, using surfactants derived from vegetal oils to replace the polyelectrolytes, as well as to obtain a model that represents the experimental data. In addition, it was made a comparative study between the models described in the literature and the one developed in this research. The obtained results showed that the developed model presented high correlation coefficients when fitting the experimental data (R2 > 0.98), thus proving its efficiency in modeling the experimental data.

Utilização de uma coluna de flotação para remoção de compostos orgânicos da água de produção

Innovative technologies using surfactant materials have applicability in several industrial fields, including petroleum and gas areas. This study seeks to investigate the use of a surfactant derived from coconut oil (SCO saponified coconut oil) in the recovery process of organic compounds that are present in oily effluents from petroleum industry. For this end, experiments were accomplished in a column of small dimension objectifying to verify the influence of the surfactant SCO in the efficiency of oil removal. This way, they were prepared emulsions with amount it fastens of oil (50, 100, 200 and 400 ppm), being determined the great concentrations of surfactant for each one of them. Some rehearsals were still accomplished with produced water of the industry of the petroleum to compare the result with the one of the emulsions. According to the experiments, it was verified that an increase of the surfactant concentration does not implicate in a greater oil removal. The separation process use gaseous bubbles formed when a gas stream pass a liquid column, when low surfactant concentrations are used, it occurs the coalescence of the dispersed oil droplets and their transport to the top of the column, forming a new continuous phase. Such surfactants lead to a gas-liquid interface saturation, depending on the used surfactant concentration, affecting the flotation process and influencing in the removal capacity of the oily dispersed phase. A porous plate filter, with pore size varying from 40 to 250 mm, was placed at the base of the column to allow a hydrodynamic stable operation. During the experimental procedures, the operating volume of phase liquid was held constant and the rate of air flow varied in each experiment. The resulting experimental of the study hydrodynamic demonstrated what the capturing of the oil was influenced by diameter of the bubbles and air flow. With the increase flow of 300 about to 900 cm3.min-1, occurred an increase in the removal of oil phase of 44% about to 66% and the removal kinetic of oil was defined as a reaction of 1° order

Utilização de uma coluna de flotação para remoção de compostos orgânicos da água de produção

Innovative technologies using surfactant materials have applicability in several industrial fields, including petroleum and gas areas. This study seeks to investigate the use of a surfactant derived from coconut oil (SCO saponified coconut oil) in the recovery process of organic compounds that are present in oily effluents from petroleum industry. For this end, experiments were accomplished in a column of small dimension objectifying to verify the influence of the surfactant SCO in the efficiency of oil removal. This way, they were prepared emulsions with amount it fastens of oil (50, 100, 200 and 400 ppm), being determined the great concentrations of surfactant for each one of them. Some rehearsals were still accomplished with produced water of the industry of the petroleum to compare the result with the one of the emulsions. According to the experiments, it was verified that an increase of the surfactant concentration does not implicate in a greater oil removal. The separation process use gaseous bubbles formed when a gas stream pass a liquid column, when low surfactant concentrations are used, it occurs the coalescence of the dispersed oil droplets and their transport to the top of the column, forming a new continuous phase. Such surfactants lead to a gas-liquid interface saturation, depending on the used surfactant concentration, affecting the flotation process and influencing in the removal capacity of the oily dispersed phase. A porous plate filter, with pore size varying from 40 to 250 mm, was placed at the base of the column to allow a hydrodynamic stable operation. During the experimental procedures, the operating volume of phase liquid was held constant and the rate of air flow varied in each experiment. The resulting experimental of the study hydrodynamic demonstrated what the capturing of the oil was influenced by diameter of the bubbles and air flow. With the increase flow of 300 about to 900 cm3.min-1, occurred an increase in the removal of oil phase of 44% about to 66% and the removal kinetic of oil was defined as a reaction of 1° order.

Desenvolvimento de dobras e falhas em ambiente distensional: Aplicação da modelagem física

The geological modeling allows, at laboratory scaling, the simulation of the geometric and kinematic evolution of geological structures. The importance of the knowledge of these structures grows when we consider their role in the creation of traps or conduits to oil and water. In the present work we simulated the formation of folds and faults in extensional environment, through physical and numerical modeling, using a sandbox apparatus and MOVE2010 software. The physical modeling of structures developed in the hangingwall of a listric fault, showed the formation of active and inactive axial zones. In consonance with the literature, we verified the formation of a rollover between these two axial zones. The crestal collapse of the anticline formed grabens, limited by secondary faults, perpendicular to the extension, with a curvilinear aspect. Adjacent to these faults we registered the formation of transversal folds, parallel to the extension, characterized by a syncline in the fault hangingwall. We also observed drag folds near the faults surfaces, these faults are parallel to the fault surface and presented an anticline in the footwall and a syncline hangingwall. To observe the influence of geometrical variations (dip and width) in the flat of a flat-ramp fault, we made two experimental series, being the first with the flat varying in dip and width and the second maintaining the flat variation in width but horizontal. These experiments developed secondary faults, perpendicular to the extension, that were grouped in three sets: i) antithetic faults with a curvilinear geometry and synthetic faults, with a more rectilinear geometry, both nucleated in the base of sedimentary pile. The normal antithetic faults can rotate, during the extension, presenting a pseudo-inverse kinematics. ii) Faults nucleated at the top of the sedimentary pile. The propagation of these faults is made through coalescence of segments, originating, sometimes, the formation of relay ramps. iii) Reverse faults, are nucleated in the flat-ramp interface. Comparing the two models we verified that the dip of the flat favors a differentiated nucleation of the faults at the two extremities of the mater fault. V These two flat-ramp models also generated an anticline-syncline pair, drag and transversal folds. The anticline was formed above the flat being sub-parallel to the master fault plane, while the syncline was formed in more distal areas of the fault. Due the geometrical variation of these two folds we can define three structural domains. Using the physical experiments as a template, we also made numerical modeling experiments, with flat-ramp faults presenting variation in the flat. Secondary antithetic, synthetic and reverse faults were generated in both models. The numerical modeling formed two folds, and anticline above the flat and a syncline further away of the master fault. The geometric variation of these two folds allowed the definition of three structural domains parallel to the extension. These data reinforce the physical models. The comparisons between natural data of a flat-ramp fault in the Potiguar basin with the data of physical and numerical simulations, showed that, in both cases, the variation of the geometry of the flat produces, variation in the hangingwall geometry

Rotação e processos de acreção e coalescência em sistemas planetários e sistemas binários

The discovery of giant stars in the spectral regions G and K, showing moderate to rapid rotation and single behavior, namely with constant radial velocity, represents one important topic of study in Stellar Astrophysics. Indeed, such anomalous rotation clearly violates the theoretical predictions on the evolution of stellar rotation, since in evolved evolutionary stages is expected that the single stars essentially have low rotation due to the evolutionary expansion. This property is well-established from the observational point of view, with different studies showing that for single giant stars of spectral types G and K values of the rotation are typically smaller than 5kms−1 . This Thesis seeks an effective contribution to solving the paradigm described above, aiming to search for single stars of spectral types G and K with anomalous rotation, tipically rotation of moderate to rapid, in other luminosity classes. In this context, we analyzed a large stellar sample consisting of 2010 apparently single stars of luminosity classes IV, III, II and Ib with spectral types G and K, with rotational velocity v sin i and radial velocity measurements obtained from observations made by CORAVEL spectrometers. As a first result of impact we discovered the presence of anomalous rotators also among subgiants, bright giants and supergiants stars, namelly stars of luminosity classes IV, II and Ib, in contrast to previous studies, that reported anomalous rotators only in the luminosity class III classic giants. Such a finding of great significance because it allows us to analyze the presence of anomalous rotation at different intervals of mass, since the luminosity classes considered here cover a mass range between 0.80 and 20MJ, approximately. In the present survey we discovered 1 subgiant, 9 giants, 2 bright giants and 5 Ib supergiants, in spectral regions G and K, with values of v sin i ≥ 10kms−1 and single behavior. This amount of 17 stars corresponds to a frequency of 0.8% of G and K single evolved stars with anomalous rotation in the mentioned classes of luminosities, listed at the Bright Star Catalog, which is complete to visual magnitude 6.3. Given these new findings, based on a stellar sample complete in visual magnitude, as that of the Bright Star Catalog, we conducted a comparative statistical analysis using the Kolmogorov- Smirnov test, from where we conclude that the distributions of rotational velocity, v sin i, for single evolved stars with anomalous rotation in luminosity classes III and II, are similar to the distributions of v sin i for spectroscopic binary systems with evolved components with the same spectral type and luminosity class. This vii result indicates that the process of coalescence between stars of a binary system might be a possible mechanism to explain the observed abnormal rotation in the referred abnormal rotators, at least among the giants and bright giants, where the rotation in excess would be associated with the transfer of angular momentum for the star resulting from the merger. Another important result of this Thesis concerns the behavior of the infrared emission in most of the stars with anomalous rotation here studied, where 14 stars of the sample tend to have an excess in IR compared with single stars with low rotation, within of their luminosity class. This property represents an additional link in the search for the physical mechanisms responsible for the abnormal observed rotation, since recent theoretical studies show that the accretion of objects of sub-stellar mass, such as brown dwarfs and giant planets, by the hosting star, can significantly raise its rotation, producing also a circumstellar dust disk. This last result seems to point in that direction, since it is not expected that dust disks occurring during the stage of star formation can survive until the stages of subgiants, giants and supergiants Ib. In summary, in this Thesis, besides the discovery of single G and K evolved stars of luminosity classes IV, II and Ib with anomalously high rotation compared to what is predicted by stellar evolution theory, we also present the frequency of these abnormal rotators in a stellar sample complete to visual magnitude 6.3. We also present solid evidence that coalescence processes in stellar binary systems and processes of accretion of brown dwarfs star or giant planets, by the hosting stars, can act as mechanisms responsible for the puzzling phenomenon of anomalous rotation in single evolved stars.