The aim of this work
was to demonstrate that the average chemical
structure of the asphaltenes of a crude oil sample is unique compared
with crudes of other wells from the Colorado Oil field, Colombia.
Six crude oils extracted from several depths (from 2112 to 6178 ft)
were studied; these crude oils have a very critical problem of deposition
of paraffins and very low concentrations of asphaltenes (<1% w/w),
although asphaltenes have been found with them in the organic deposits.
To research this problem, first, we studied the chemical structure
of asphaltenes; this information will be used in the future to understand
the influence of asphaltene chemical structure on the crystallization
of paraffins in waxy crude oils. The Colorado asphaltenes were characterized
by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), mass spectrometry (MS), X-ray
diffraction (XRD), and Raman spectroscopy to determine their main
structural parameters. Average molecular parameters (AMPs) were analyzed
using matrix plot, cluster analysis, and principal component analysis;
it was demonstrated that the average molecular structures of asphaltenes
differed from each other, and a cluster scatterplot suggests that
there are four types of asphaltenes in the crude oils from the Colorado
Oil field. The more extreme structural differences were between the
asphaltenes of the crude oils obtained from the top sand and the bottom
sand.
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