Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T15:35:59.197Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Asphaltene Aggregation Kinetics in Crude Oil Using Confocal Microscopy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2020

Robert J. Johnston  and
Thomas G. Mason
Robert J. Johnston
Affiliation:
Corporate Strategic Research, ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, Route 22 East, Annandale, NJ, 08801
Thomas G. Mason
Affiliation:
Corporate Strategic Research, ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, Route 22 East, Annandale, NJ, 08801
Get access

Abstract

Confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) has been used to study asphaltene aggregation kinetics by employing the microscope's automated acquisition to generate time-lapsed projection maps of aggregating asphaltenes in the autofluorescent matrix of crude oil. Heavy crude oils contain asphaltene particles resulting in the production of optically observable micron-sized asphaltene aggregates. These aggregates form as a result of attractive interactions induced by mixing the heavy crude oil with a poor solvent. This technique has been employed to determine the volume fraction of aggregated asphaltenes, ϕagg, and the time evolution of this phenomenon. The measurements cover a range of various concentrations of asphaltene volume fractions of the heavy asphaltenic oil, ϕm, from ϕm =0.001 to ϕm =0.4.

At each ϕm,after the mixtures have been made, approximately 20 μl of the crude oil is placed in a 20 μm deep flat-well quartz cell and immediately placed on a microscope stage.

Type
Microscopy in the Real World: Natural Materials
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 7 , Issue S2: Proceedings: Microscopy & Microanalysis 2001, Microscopy Society of America 59th Annual Meeting, Microbeam Analysis Society 35th Annual Meeting, Long Beach, California August 5-9, 2001 , August 2001 , pp. 542 - 543
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Shue, E. Y. et al., Asphaltenes Fundamentals and Applications, New York Plenum (1995) 97.Google Scholar
2.Russ, J. C., The Image Processing Handbook, 2nd ed., Boca Raton CRC Press (1995).Google Scholar
3.Johnston, R. J. et al, Asphaltene Aggregation Studies of Crude Oil Using 3-D Confocal Microscopy, Microscopy and Microanalysis, Vol. 6, Supplement 2, Proceedings, New York Springer-Verlag (2000), pp. 22–23.Google Scholar
4.Larson, R. G., The Structure and Rheology of Complex Fluids, New YorkOxford University Press (1999).Google Scholar