THREE-DIMENSIONAL IMAGES AND SPECTRA OF LIGHT/HEAVY CRUDE OIL AND ASPHALTENE AGGREGATES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

摘要

Designing and building experimental probes of the in-situ onset of asphaltene precipitation from crude oil under environmental conditions is of major technological importance for the energy and oil production industries. Novel developments in laser-based optical instruments currently enable remote-sensing spectroscopy and microscopy even of turbid and opaque samples. However, some of these novel photonic solutions have not been explored, as far as we know, to develop optical instruments capable of determining the onset of asphaltene aggregation and precipitation. Our group aims to develop such optical instruments.