Fig.
3 Demulsification efficiencies of
MIL-100(Fe) at different time (a ), pH (b ) and salinity
(c ), and that of the used MIL-100(Fe) (d )
Above investigation for demulsification performance suggested that
MIL-100(Fe) can demulsify perfectly, especially at the acid and
hyperhaline environment, which exactly was the conditions of exploiting
for the oil 33,34. Therefore, the MIL-100(Fe) is
suitable for demulsification in the area of the petroleum industry.
Furthermore, the dehydration for crude oil emulsion was carried out to
investigate the practical demulsification performance of MIL-100(Fe).
Shocking drastically about 10 s following adding 0.50 g of MIL-100(Fe)
into 50 ml of crude oil emulsion with a water content of 90%, the crude
oil and water separated spontaneously within 5 min at room temperature
without any other assistive
technologies (Fig. S5 ). The dehydration efficiency for crude
oil emulsion using MIL-100(Fe) was 79%. Particularly, the time for the
dehydration of crude oil emulsion was very short, compared with the
conventional demulsifier (~hour) 35-37and some loading type heterogeneous demulsifier (exceed 30 min)38,39. It should be noted that the dehydration
efficiency for crude oil emulsion using MIL-100(Fe) might be further
improved through the optimization of dehydration conditions and the
combination with other assistive technologies.