What is wax hydrocarbon?
Paraffin wax (or petroleum wax) is a soft colorless solid derived from petroleum, coal or oil shale that consists of a mixture of hydrocarbon molecules containing between twenty and forty carbon atoms. In chemistry, paraffin is used synonymously with alkane, indicating hydrocarbons with the general formula CnH2n+2.
How do you remove wax from crude oil?
The commonly used method of separating wax from oil, particularly separating wax from petroleum fractions, is solvent dewaxing, in which the wax-containing oil is chilled in the presence of a selective solvent for the oil and filtered. The use and recovery of the solvent makes the process relatively expensive.
What is wax appearance temperature?
The wax appearance temperature (WAT), also known as the cloud point, is an important characteristic to evaluate the possible wax precipitation of a given fluid. It is defined as the temperature at which a crude oil first precipitates.
What is wax deposition?
Wax deposition is a problem that can arise, when a crude oil containing paraffin wax is cooled down in the pipeline during production. Wax crystallizes at the pipeline wall and the formation of a wax deposit can lead to increased pressure drop and even production stop.
What can wax be used for?
Waxes are also used in shoe polishes, wood polishes, and automotive polishes, as mold release agents in mold making, as a coating for many cheeses, and to waterproof leather and fabric. Wax has been used since antiquity as a temporary, removable model in lost-wax casting of gold, silver and other materials.
What are waxes made of?
Essentially, waxes consist of a long-chain fatty acid linked through an ester oxygen to a long-chain alcohol. These molecules are completely water-insoluble and generally solid at biological temperatures.
What is waxy crude oil?
Waxy crude oil can be defined as the crude oil that contains high amount of long-chain paraffin wax (alkanes) components, making the crude to possess a high pour point and, may be, a low API gravity.
What causes paraffin in oil wells?
The primary cause of wax or paraffin deposition is simply a loss in solubility in the crude oil. This loss of solubility is usually a result of changes in temperature, pressure, or composition of the crude oil as a result of loss of dissolved gases.
How is wax appearance temperature determined?
The standard cloud-point test method (D-2500- 98) developed by ASTM (1998) is the most routinely used to determine the WAT temperature. According to this test, 40 mL of fuel are placed in a test jar that is cooled in an isothermal bath.
What is cloud point in diesel?
2 diesel cools during colder, overnight temperatures, it may reach “cloud point,” when wax crystals develop in the fuel. The fuel will look cloudy and crystals can plug the fuel filter, resulting in poor starts, engine hesitation, stalling and even engine damage.
What is wax in oil and gas?
Petroleum wax deposits contain some entrapped crude oil, water, gums, resins, sand and asphaltenes, depending on the nature of the particular crude oil. The trapped oil in the wax deposit causes diffusion of wax molecules into the gel deposit and counter-diffusion of oil out of the gel deposit, as shown in Figure 2.
How is wax transported?
Paraffin will be shipped in bags or boxes and has to be stowed in a cool place and sun-protected. Do not stow close to odor emitting vapors and do not use dunnage. The heads of the bags should be stowed towards- and tightly against each other.
What kind of detector is used for GC?
An FID is a common detector used for GC in clinical laboratories. 12,21,22 This type of detector is often used during GC analysis of ethanol and other volatiles in blood or other aqueous samples.
What kind of gas can a model C detect?
The Model C has a highly sensitive hydrocarbon sensor that easily detects many hydrocarbons in very small concentrations, including methane gas leaks of less than one cubic foot per year.
How is the wax content of crude oil determined?
The most common method for the determination of waxes in crude oils is precipitation from cold solvent mixtures, with gravimetric determination of the recovered waxes.