Interfacially active acids in a California crude oil. Isolation of carboxylic acids and phenols

Dynamic surface tensions of Athabasca bitumen vacuum residue including the effect of dissolved air

“…Changes in the composition and distribution of polar groups upon oxidation, therefore, were recognized as having significant effects on interfacial properties of bitumen, such as interfacial tension. Many crude oil or bitumen-aqueous studies have been carried out [29][30][31][32][33][34][35]. Bartell and Niederhauser [29] studied interfacially active components of Rio Bravo (California) crude oil.…”

“…Investigators at the U.S. Bureau of Mines examining Wilcox (Oklahoma) crude oil [30] concluded that porphyrins and related substances are the major contributors to the interfacial activity of crude oils. The naturally occurring anionic surfactants in a Midway Sunset crude oil were studied by Seifert and Howells [31,32], and it was recognized that carboxylic acids have significant effects on interfacial tension. Phenols have been reported to decrease the surface activity of carboxylic acids [32].…”

How Important Are Organic Acids in Generating Secondary Porosity in the Subsurface?

“…In other words, very little data are available on the composition of pore waters other than from producing oil and gas wells and that by their very nature they represent a very biased sample as oil companies try not to produce significant amounts of water with no associated hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are known to contain organic acids including carboxylic acid (Seifert and Howells 1969) and naphthenic acid (Louis 1967). Californian crude oils have been reported as containing up to 2.5% carboxylic acid.…”

Anaerobic Biological Treatment of Produced Water

“…Naphthenic acids, also known as petroleum acids, are native constituents of petroleum (Davis, 1967). Because of the acid nature of these hydrocarbons, they have significant water solubility, and they will readily form emulsions in water (Seifert and Howells, 1969). The composition of the naphthenic acids is highly variable, but generally will include cyclic and aromatic moieties with aliphatic side chains of varying lengths and containing one or more carboxylate moieties (Seifert and Teeter, 1970;Schmitter et al, 1978;Green et al, 1985;Dzidic et al, 1988;Fan, 1991;Hsu et al, 2000).…”