The exploration and production of crude oil are often accompanied by water in oil emulsion (W/O) formation that can pose serious problems for downstream refinery industries. Chemical demulsification and electrostatic separation are two major techniques that are commonly used to overcome the problems associated with the formation of W/O emulsions. In this study, nano-technology was employed to facilitate the demulsification process and titania was chosen as a case study. A wide variety of nano-titania particles were synthesized by sol-gel method. The prepared samples were dispersed in a conventional chemical demulsifier to verify whether it can improve the separation process. The prepared nano-titania particles were analyzed by particle size analysis (PSA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), bottle test, electrostatic test, and standard IP77 method. The results specified the sample with the highest water separation performance and obviously revealed that it would effectively increase the demulsification efficiency to a value greater than 90% and it would also decrease the settling time required for efficient separation. (C) 2014 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.