Process For Treating Crude Oil Page: 2 of 4
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UNITED STATESPATENT OFFICE.
WILLIAM S. BARNICKE., OF ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI.,;
PROCESS FOR TREATING CRUDE OIL.Specification of Letters Patent. Patented Apr. 14, 1914.
Application filed March 13, 1912. Serial No. 683,619.To all whom it may concern:
Be it known that I, WILUiAM S. BAR-
NICKEL, a citizen of the United States, resid-
ing at St. Louis, Missouri, have invented a
5 certain new and useful Improvement in. Proc-
esses for Treating Crude Oil, of which the
following is a full, clear, and exact descrip-
tion, such as will enable others skilled in the
art to which it appertains to make and use
10 the same.
This invention relates to the treatment of
certain kinds of natural oils, and has for its
object to render such oils suitable for com-
mercial use.
15 It not infrequently happens that a well
will produce oil, which is so mixed with
other substances that it is unfit for use and
no way has-heretofore been discovered, as
far as I am aware, of successfully separating
20 out the oil proper, without the loss of any
of the valuable, volatile constituents.
The oils to which I refer are known.in the
oil-fields as "roily " oils, which term I will
hereinafter use for convenience, and consist
25 of a mixture of a slimy substance, water and
petroleum, the latter being held in a state
of suspension with the water and not sepa-
rating out even when the liquid is allowed
to. stand for months.
3o If the percentage of foreign matter.
(slimy substance and water) is low, for ex-
ample, less than 10%, the oil and water will
separate to a large extent in course of time
ands although the means .I employ in my
35 method, as hereinafter described and
claimed, is capable of and adapted for use
with rqily oils of widely varying percen-
tages if petroleum content, yet it is more
particularly adapted and useful for oils con-
40 training not less than 10% of foreign matter
(slimy substance and water), and from that
up to 90% or more of foreign matter.
My method has proved eminently efficient
and economical in actual practice and, by
45 its use, many thousands of barrels of oil
- have been recovered from the production of
wells which would. otherwise have been
nothing but waste material.
It must be clearly understood that the ob-
50 ject and result of my-method are not a mere
separation of petroleum-and water, (which
may have emulsified therewith by accidental
addition after the oil has left the well), but
consist in the treatment of certain natural
55 oils, as they come from the well, and which
contain,- besides the water and petroleum, arelatively large proportion of a slimy sub-
stance-the exact composition of which is
unknown to me-which acts like an enulsi-
fying agent and prevents the natural sepa- 60
ration of the petroleum from the water.
. Oils of this kind are thick, viscous liquids,
yellow to brown in color, and which -when
spread thinly over the ground, look almost
like sand. . In cold weather, it is sometimes 65
so thick that it can be picked up on a shovel,
although its consistency depends, of course,
upon the relative percentage of petroleum
and foreign matter which it contains. This
foreign matter,.when it has been -separated 70
from the petroleum as. hereinafter described,
consists of a slimy, gelatinous mass, of jelly-
like consistency, and salty water.. Such oils
are produced by wells in the Louisiana,
Texas, Oklahoma and California oil-fields, 75
to my own knowledge, and doubtless occur
in other'fields. A well will frequently pro-
duce good oil for a time anid then "go bad,"
in other words, produce "roily" oil and, as
far as I am aware, no method had been dis- 80
covered, prior to mine, of treating. such oil
commercially so as to render it fit for trans-
portation and further treatment.
When the percentage of foreign matter is
slight, a large part of the petroleum can 85
be separated by boiling, but this is an ex-
pensive operation and causes a loss of the
valuable volatile constituents, such as gaso-
lene, naphtha, etc. It was also known that
sulfuric acid would serve to produce the o
separation, but it is not practicable to use
it because it combines with the petroleum, .
yielding a sulfonated oil which attacks the
iron of the pipe lines and tank cars and
hence 'oil so treated is not marketable. It 95
was also known that soluble sulfates, salt,
etc., would remove small amounts of water
from oil by increasing its specific gravity,
but the problem, which is solved by my
process, is not to .separate water from oil 100
in the presence of each other only, but to
isolate the slimy material described above,
thus leaving the oil and water free to sep-
arate in the natural way.
I have discovered that the addition and ios
intimate admixture of a very small percent-
age of a soluble -metallic sulfate to the roily
oil, causes the mixture, constituting the lat-
ter, to " break " promptly, and yield an
upper stratum of clear. petroleum, a lower 110
stratum of clear water, and an intermediate
stratum of slimy substance between the two:- ,1,093,098.
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Barnickel, William S. Process For Treating Crude Oil, patent, March 8, 1912; [Washington D.C.]. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth858531/m1/2/: accessed June 22, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.