Treatment of crude oil-contaminated sand: wetting, adhesion and cohesion

Lack of data lead the research work on characterization of physical properties of crude oil contaminated sand or produced sand. Improvement of the sand treatment techniques requires detail information of the contaminated sand properties. Most of previous studies went detail on geotechnical properties of crude oil-contaminated sand or soil but not much on their other physical properties. This research work characterized the physical properties of sand, crude oil and crude oil-contaminated sand namely density, viscosity, pH value, wetting, adhesion and cohesion study. Technique of measurement should be correctly selected in order to obtain a result with least error. There are several techniques can be used to determine each parameter but best single method was used for each parameter with limitation consideration. Different techniques of measurement are used to determine those parameters. Sand bulk and grain densities were measured using cylinder and analytical balance. For crude oil, its density and viscosity were measured using a graduated cylinder and automated viscometer AMVn respectively. pH value determination was performed by Mettler Toledo pH meter. For wetting, adhesion and cohesion study, goniometer has been used for contact angle measure measurement.