Molecular transformation of Athabasca bitumen end-cuts during coking and hydrocracking

Separation and characterization of bitumen from Athabasca oil sand

“…The shortage of oil of known petroleum reserves will make less attended energy resources more attractive. The most feasible way to meet this growing demand is by utilizing such sources as bitumen, which is a huge potential resource to fulfill petroleum requirements of processes significantly [4][5][6][7]. Bitumen is a mixture of organic liquids that is viscous, black and sticky.…”

Heat capacity prediction for polynuclear aromatic solids using vibration spectra

“…Diverse average molecular structures have been proposed for asphaltenes and other ill-defined petroleum fractions obtained in some cases from the same sources and analyzed in a broadly similar manner [1,2]. Proposed average structures range from pendant core models, characterized by a single large central polynuclear aromatic + naphthenic sheet with multiple but short alkane chains connected to it, to archipelago models, characterized by multiple but small polynuclear aromatic + naphthenic sheets interconnected with alkane chains.…”

Synthesis and self-association of dibenzothiophene derivatives for simulation of hydrogen bonding interaction in asphaltenes

“…It has been found that these components can result in strong self-association via hydrogen-bonding, alkyl-alkyl, and p-p stacking interactions between the molecules (Murgich et al 1996;Murgich 2002;Sheu 2002). Although two types of molecular models, ''island'' and ''archipelago'', have been proposed to describe the structures of molecules present in asphaltenes (Groenzin and Mullins 2000;Zhao et al 2001;Murgich et al 1999;Sheremata et al 2004), the chemical identity of asphaltene remains poorly understood.…”

“…Another approach to improving understanding of the molecular structure and liquid-phase association behavior relevant to asphaltenes is to synthesize pure compounds with known chemical structures and similar physicochemical properties to those of asphaltenes, and then to examine their behavior in solution (Groenzin and Mullins 2000;Zhao et al 2001;Tan et al 2009;Akbarzadeh et al 2005). Recently, a series of compounds which contain polyaromatic p-stacking and heterocyclic hydrogen bonding sites linked by aliphatic tethers have been synthesized for study of the self-association behavior of asphaltenes (Tan et al 2009;Sheremata et al 2004;Akbarzadeh et al 2005).…”