Patent 7399403 was granted and assigned to Nalco (company) on July, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A process for removing metal contaminants, particularly calcium, from hydrocarbon feedstocks is disclosed. The process comprises mixing the feedstocks with an effective metal removing amount of an aqueous solution of one or more water-soluble poly(acrylic acid) derivatives to form an aqueous phase containing the metal ions and a hydrocarbon phase and separating the hydrocarbon phase from the aqueous phase.