Water-in-oil emulsification and development of model EMU

Oil-spill at sea represents one of the greatest threats for the environment. Immediately after occurence\ud of an oil-spill several physical, chemical and biological processes occur, among which the process of\ud emulsification is one of the most important. Emulsified oil is very difficult to clean; therefore,\ud understnding of the emulsification processes is of great importance for successful clean-up.\ud Preconditions for formation of water-in-oil emulsion are adequate chemical conditions and sufficient\ud wave energy. The behaviour of formed emulsion depends mostly on its stability. After more than half\ud a century of research, scientists have concluded that emulsions are stabilized by viscoelastic\ud asphaltene films, which form around water droplets in oil and that emulsions can be divided into four\ud stability classes: stable emulsion, mesostable emulsions, unstable emulsion and entrained water.\ud Numerical models have been developed parallelly with the development of theory of the water-in-oil\ud emulsification. In this work we describe the development of the water-in-oil emulsification theory, the\ud development of the numerical models in the last few decades and the development of the model EMU.\ud The EMU model was developed using most recent equations for prediction of the emulsion stability\ud and emulsion kinetics. It is the first model developed at the Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering\ud of University of Ljubljana dedicated exclusively to the oil emulsification process. We also present the\ud use of the model on the Macondo oil-spill case study