ABSTRACT
Surfactants are usually present in all industrial oil/water systems, and these tend to stabilize the dispersions. Hence most oil /water dispersions produced from unrefined oils tend to abound with naturally occurring surfactants that often thwart attempts to destabilize the suspensions. For dilute dispersions, the separator is usually a long, horizontal, rectangular basin. A dispersion creates much surface area. The astute addition of polymers can destabilize oil-water emulsions and are often called emulsion breakers. The issue of the role of pH and the charge interaction between the media and the emulsion has not received enough attention from researchers despite the fact that the surface phenomena fundamentals seem to point to this as being of key importance. When the emulsion is stabilized by surfactants and/or a film, a possible method for causing instability is to add a destabilizing surfactant that displaces the initial, stabilizing surfactant.
