Synthesis zinc oxide nanoparticles for oil upgrading and wax deposition control: effect on calcination temperature: article

A new synthesized nano materials have massively attracted the researchers for more development of nano materials especially in the oil and gas industry to maximize the oil productivity performances. Wax deposition control measurement tests are the effective ways to recognise appropriate calcination temperature for zinc oxide nanoparticles in crude oil performance. In this study zinc oxide nanoparticles were synthesized using sol-gel method for oil upgrading and wax deposition control. The synthesized zinc oxide nanoparticles were used to measure viscosity and wax deposition in the heavy crude oil and to investigate the effectiveness of the nanoparticles in reduction of viscosity and wax deposition control of the heavy crude oil. Therefore this study is proposed to investigate the effect of calcination temperature of zinc oxide nanoparticles towards oil upgrading, viscosity reduction and wax deposition control. ZnO nanoparticles were calcined at different temperature ranging from 300°C to 900°C. Basically the calcined ZnO nanoparticles were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Field Emission Scanning Electron microscope (FESEM), and Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) in order to comprehend its structure, size, shape and morphology. The characterization results reveal the hexagonal structure of ZnO nanoparticles which is hexagonal wurtzite structure. Practically the physical properties and rheology of heavy crude oil were characterized by using Electronic Rheometer and cold finger method in order to understand and analyse the viscosity, shear rate and wax deposition of the heavy crude oil for performance study. Decrease in crystallite size from 15.59 nm to 12.84 nm was observed with increasing calcination temperature from 300°C to 400°C, and further increasing of calcination temperature from 400 to 900°C , the crystallite size is tend to increase from 12.84 nm to 41.58. The degree viscosity reduction (DVR %) of heavy crude oil was observed to increase by 41.7% with decreasing ZnO nanoparticles size from 30.11 nm to 12.84 nm. The optimum calcination temperature was 400°C. Wax deposition decrease by 32.40% after addition of ZnO nanoparticles into heavy crude oil.