Experimental Investigation of Asphaltenes Flocculation Threshold in Crude Oils Using Different Methods: Comparative Study

摘要

Despite some recent progress trustworthy methods to predict the flocculation onset in crude oils are still needed. In this article, different experimental methods, like the density measurement method, the optical and the spot techniques based on the mixture of crude oil+toluene or cyclohexane+ n-heptane, respectively, are applied to assess changes of aggregation occurring in crude oil under influence of physical and chemical factors as well as under variable temperature conditions. The solubility parameters of Hildebrand have also been used to predict the flocculation threshold. It turned out that the findings achieved by the spot method and the optical technique are in excellent agreement with break points of the reduced density curves obtained by the density measurement method for crude oils of different geographical origins. Using the solubility parameters of Hildebrand leads to comparable results. All these achievements confirm the density measurement method as a new possibility for reliably determining the flocculation onset in crude oils systems. With respect to temperature effects, changes of the oil microstructure could be detected as function of the temperature by means of the differential scanning calorimetry. In particular the thermal curves behavior of certain crude oils confirmed the existence of aggregation processes.