The Impact of Ethylene Glycol on Droplet Growth Inhibition in Ethylene Vinyl Acetate Emulsions

Abstract

Pour point depressant (PPD) emulsion has been gaining attention in crude oil transportation owing to its potential to solve solidification issues that arise in cold climate environments. An emulsion system provides a wide range of temperature application that combines good shelf life and tunable thermal properties to tackle this problem. These features can be achieved by incorporating an antifreeze agent into the emulsion. One of the most commonly used antifreeze agents is ethylene glycol (EG). Hence, this study focuses on the thermal properties and droplet size growth of PPD emulsions that were aged in variable concentrations of EG solution. EG50 exhibited the lowest freezing temperature of −44 °C, while EG25 demonstrated the lowest vitrification temperature of −68.7 °C. The particle size of the emulsions underwent a significant reduction from 332.3 to 228.9 nm upon the stepwise EG concentration increment to EG50. However, when the concentration was increased to EG75, a slight increase in the emulsion particle size was observed with a recorded value of 237.8 nm. Thus, it is concluded that EG50 represents the optimum concentration for delivering the best freezing protection and producing a smaller droplet particle size.