Nanofluidic platform for emulsion stability

乳剂在石油工业中提出了严峻的工程挑战。原油总是含有一些水，其中大部分以大透镜的形式存在，可以很容易地去除。在生产过程中，当石油流经井筒、阀门和泵叶轮时，由于剧烈的搅拌以及原油中存在的天然表面活性剂的帮助，一些水被乳化成微米级的液滴，这些液滴很难分离。溶解在水中的盐（主要是氯化钠）对下游管道和炼油厂造成了严重的腐蚀问题。石油工业每天花费数百万美元来防止地层形成或分解原油含水（W/CO）乳液。有人指出，沥青质几乎完全负责W/CO乳液的稳定性；然而，它们的确切稳定机制尚不清楚

Emulsions pose serious engineering challenges in petroleum industry. Crude oils always contain some water, most of which in form of large lenses that can be easily removed. During production, when oil flows through wellbores, valves, and pump impellers, due to vigorous agitation and with the help of natural surfactants present in the crude oil, some water is emulsified into micron-sized droplets, which are very difficult to separate. Salts (mostly sodium chloride) dissolved in that water pose serious corrosion problems for downstream pipelines and refineries. Oil industry spends millions of dollars daily to prevent formation or to break up water-in-crude oil (W/CO) emulsions. It has been stated that asphaltenes are almost exclusively responsible for the stability of the W/CO emulsions; however their exact stabilization mechanism is not yet