Synthesis of ZnO Nanoparticles for Wax Deposition Control and Oil Upgrading: Effect of Ratio of Zinc Acetate Dihydrate to Oxalic Acid Dihydrate

In the current paper, fundamental aspects of heavy oil and wax deposition problems are defined. Wax or in another term is cloud point occur when the oil starts to precipitate. When it’s started to precipitate, it can cause major problem to industry of oil and gas. In this study, ZnO nanoparticles were chosen to study the effect of varying molar ratio from 1:1, 1:2, 1:3 to the morphology and size of the nanoparticle. The structures and properties were recognized with energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) methods. EDX and FE-SEM is to study the morphology of ZnO structure while XRD is to determine the purity and size of the nanoparticle. From the study, 1:1 ratio has the smallest size of nanoparticle with 10.37 nm while 1:2 and 1:3 give the size of 12.3 nm and 16.37 nm respectively. As the molar ratio is increases, the size of nanoparticle become bigger. The influenced of ZnO nanoparticles on rheological behaviour of model oils and the wax content is reported. From the study, the addition of ZnO nanoparticle reduced the rheology behaviour of crude oil by varying nanoparticle sizes, temperature and shear rate. ZnO nanoparticle can reduce the deposition of wax up to 50% with influenced of smaller nanoparticle size. Effect of size of nanoparticle highly impact the viscosity and wax content. This prove that, by introducing nanoparticle into crude oil, wax content can be reduced thus decrease the chance for crude to precipitate.