Effect of Natural Surfactant on the Rheological Characteristics of Heavy Crude Oil

In present work, an attempt has been made to investigate the possibility of transporting heavy crude oil with and without addition of natural additive. The physical, chemical and rheological properties of heavy crude oil have been determined at different temperature condition. The rheological characteristics include steady and unsteady flow, viscoelastic and thixotropic characteristics etc. Madhuca longfolio was used as an additive with the heavy crude oil. The surfactant was mixed in heavy crude oil of 1000 and 2000 ppm. The heavy crude oil shows the non-Newtonian flow characteristics at low temperature and decreases with increase in temperature. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) results reveals that a significant decrease in concentration was found in alcoholic, ketones and alkanes group which increases the viscosity of crude oil. The rheological results show that there is a reduction in viscosity with addition of Madhuca longfolio as additive in heavy crude oil suspension which is useful for design of pipeline of oil transportation system. (c) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.