The research status on wax deposition of waxy crude oil and its emulsions

Wax deposition is a common problem in pipeline transportation of waxy crude oil and its emulsions, so the further research on wax deposition is of great significance to guarantee the safe and economical operation of pipelines. In this paper, the related research achievements on wax deposition of waxy crude oil and its emulsions were systematically reviewed at home and abroad, including the mechanisms and influencing factors of wax deposition, the advantages and disadvantages of the experimental study methods and their devices, the existing dynamic models, and the building mechanisms and characteristics of crude oil wax deposition models and the issues to be perfected were pointed out. The models used for the wax deposition in waxy crude oil emulsions are all based on the model of single-phase crude oil wax deposition. In this paper, their building methods were summarized, and the existing emulsion models were compared and analyzed. In a word, the existing mechanisms, models, methods and devices for researching the wax deposition of waxy crude oil and its emulsions are summarized completely and thoroughly. It can be used as the important reference for the future related researches.