Viscosity Reduction of Heavy and Extra Heavy Crude Oils by Pulsed Electric Field

The ever-increasing world energy demand would require the use of all hydrocarbon resources available, especially heavy and extra-heavy crude oils in the near future. However, transportation of these crudes is very difficult due to their high viscosity and low mobility. There are many different methods to reduce heavy crude oil viscosity. Some of these methods are heating, blending, water-in-oil emulsion formation, upgrading, and core annular flow. But each of these methods has several problems. The aim of this research is to investigate a new method to reduce viscosity for pipeline transportation. In this method asphalt molecules, which are mainly responsible for high viscosity, are aggregated temporarily to micronized clusters while going through a pulsed electric field, causing a reduction of the viscosity. This method does not change the oil's temperature and is very suitable for underwater pipelines. The authors applied electric fields in the range of 0.5 to 1.8 KV/mm an Iranian heavy crude oil and viscosity reduction up to 7% was observed.