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. 2022 Sep 24;22(19):7236.
doi: 10.3390/s22197236.

Ultrasonic Monitoring of the Water Content in Concentrated Water-Petroleum Emulsions Using the Slope of the Phase Spectrum

Ediguer E Franco  1 , Carlos A B Reyna  2 , Alberto L Durán  2 , Flávio Buiochi  1
Affiliations

Ultrasonic Monitoring of the Water Content in Concentrated Water-Petroleum Emulsions Using the Slope of the Phase Spectrum

Ediguer E Franco et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

This work proposes the slope of the phase spectrum as a signal processing parameter for the ultrasonic monitoring of the water content of water-in-crude oil emulsions. Experimental measurements, with water volume fractions from 0 to 0.48 and test temperatures of 20 °C, 25 °C, and 30 °C, were carried out using ultrasonic measurement devices operating in transmission-reception and backscattering modes. The results show the phase slope depends on the water volume fraction and, to a lesser extent, on the size of the emulsion droplets, leading to a stable behavior over time. Conversely, the behavior of the phase slope as a function of the volume fraction is monotonic with low dispersion. Fitting a power function to the experimental data provides calibration curves that can be used to determine the water content with percentage relative error up to 70% for a water volume fraction of 0.06, but less than 10% for water volume fractions greater than 0.06. Furthermore, the methodology works over a wide range of volume fractions.

Keywords: backscattering; phase slope; ultrasound; volume fraction; water–petroleum emulsion.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Experimental configurations and waveforms of (a) transmission–reception and (b) backscattering modes. (a) TRD. (b) BSD.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Experimental setup.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Phase of the Fourier transform as a function of frequency for all the water concentrations at 20 °C in the transmission–reception (TRD) and backscattering (BSD) cases. (a) TRD. (b) BSD.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Relative phase slope as a function of the test time for all the concentrations at 30 °C: transmission–reception (TRD) and backscattering (BSD) cases. (a) TRD. (b) BSD.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Relative phase slope as a function of the water volume fraction for the three test temperatures: transmission–reception (TRD) and backscattering (BSD) cases. Experimental results are the mean and standard deviation of 50 acquisitions and the solid lines are the fitting results. In the BSD case, two identical tests performed at each temperature are shown. (a) TRD. (b) BSD.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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