Adsorption of Petroleum Asphaltenes onto Reservoir Rock Sands Studied by Near-Infrared (NIR) Spectroscopy

Abstract

Asphaltenes are the most polar petroleum macromolecules. The high polarity causes their rather high superficial activity. A relatively high value of asphaltene adsorption means that this substance is responsible for many phenomena in the petroleum industry, such as well bore plugging and pipeline deposition, stabilization of water/oil emulsions, sedimentation and plugging during crude oil storage, adsorption on refining equipment, and coke formation. The knowledge of kinetic and thermodynamic parameters of adsorption opens a regulation opportunity for the capillary number and wettability. In perspective, it opens a way for physical and chemical engineering of liquid-solid interfaces in the oil industry. In this study, the adsorption parameters of petroleum asphaltenes on quartz, dolomite, and mica sands were investigated using near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy. Each adsorbent was fractioned in its own particle size range, and the particle size was estimated. The experimental adsorption data were theoretically modeled using Langmuir adsorption. The maximal adsorbed mass density, the adsorption equilibrium constant, and adsorption/desorption rate constants were calculated. The initial stage of the colmatage mechanism for the petroleum collector based on capillary aggregation assumption is offered. Among investigated adsorbents, the highest asphaltene adsorption takes place in the case of mica.

Fractionation of Asphaltenes in Understanding Their Role in Petroleum Emulsion Stability and Fouling

“…4,15 Such precipitation may lead to the deposition of asphaltenes in production wells and pipelines (Figure 2a), resulting in the flow restriction, or even bringing oil production to a halt. 4,[15][16][17][18][19][20] In addition, asphaltenes play a significant role in the stabilization of water-in-oil (W/O) emulsions [21][22][23][24][25][26] (Figure 2b) which lead to severe corrosion problems in production and transportation due to the dissolved salts and entrained fine solids carried by emulsified water droplets. 4 Moreover, an oil with high content of asphaltenes tends to form coke when heated, which is highly detrimental to heat exchangers and catalyst beds in upgrading and refining.…”

Adsorption and Aggregation of Asphaltenes in Petroleum Dispersed Systems

“…Diffusion of such molecules to solid surface is embarrassing. The mechanism of diffusion limited adsorption is realized (Syunyaev et al, 2009;Diamant & Andelman, 1996). Gibbs energy values are more or less the same for surfaces of all investigated materials: quartz, dolomite, and mica.…”

“…Asphaltene and resin adsorption was studied by a great number of research groups (Ekholm et al, 2002;TatNIPI, 1988;Balabin&Syunyaev, 2008;Syunyaev et al, 2009;Acevedo et al, 2000;Lopez-Linares et al, 2006;Gonzalez&Middea, 1987;Drummond&Israelachvili, 2004;Toulhoat et al, 1994;Akhlaq et al, 1997;Dudasova et al, 2007;Alboudwarej et al, 2005;Batina et al, 2003;Batina et al, 2005;Castillo et al, 1998;Acevedo et al, 1998;Acevedo et al, 2000;Acevedo et al, 2003;Ekholm et al, 2002;Xie&Karan, 2005;Dudasova et al, 2008;Rudrake et al, 2009;Abdallah&Taylor, 2007;Labrador et al, 2007;Turgman-Cohen et al;. Adsorption of asphaltenes on solid surfaces has been characterized by several experimental techniques, including measurement of contact angles (Drummond & Israelachvili, 2004;Toulhoat et al, 1994;Akhlaq et al, 1997), UV and NIR spectroscopy (Dudasova et al, 2007;Alboudwarej et al, 2005), atomic force microscopy (Toulhoat et al, 1994;Batina et al, 2003;Batina et al, 2005), Fourier transform infrared microscopy (Batina et al, 2005), photothermal surface deformation Acevedo et al, 1998;Acevedo et al, 2000;Acevedo et al, 2003), quartz microbalance (Ekholm e...…”

“…Fundamental Buger-Lambert-Beer law was used for concentration measurements. Final formula for determination of adsorption (Syunyaev et al, 2009) is presented below. The first order equation of reversible Langmuir adsorption kinetics (Hunter, 2001;Hiemenz&Rajagopalan, 1997) was used for data approximation:…”

A Realistic Look at Nanostructured Material as an Innovative Approach for Enhanced Oil Recovery Process Upgrading

“…Asphaltenes [65,66] exist in forms of solid deposits and usually self-associate with resins in crude oil and are often problematic during production as they can plug wellbore tubing and valves, and contribute to undesirable formation rock surface coating. Such asphaltenes -polydispersed [67] can exist in the form of colloidal suspensions or micelles which form deposits when the wettability conditions of the reservoirs are altered. A study by Franco et al…”