Increasing Retention Time to Create Larger Water Droplet
A small increase in water droplet diameter will increase the settling rate since water droplet is squared in the settling equation.
The water droplet size will increase within a retention time in the coalescing section, adding a heat input will speedup the process since heat will excites the collisions of small droplet to create larger droplet. Higher oil viscosity will slower the coalescence process, the particle movement is restricted in high oil viscosity.
The problem is coalescence occurs mostly on the oil-water interface zone, so increasing the retention time in crude oil treating system may not be the best solutions. Retention time will only create some minimal time for initial coalescence process.
Categories: Oil Treating | Tags: Retention Time, Water Droplet | Leave a comment