화학공학소재연구정보센터
Energy & Fuels, Vol.33, No.9, 8566-8575, 2019
Quantitative Modeling of Formation of Asphaltene Nanoaggregates
Association of asphaltene molecules to form aggregates is a defining property of this fraction of petroleum, which has impacts on all aspects of production and refining. Association has been detected over a very wide range of concentrations, but the quantitative modeling of this aggregation of molecules has mainly been restricted to fitting relatively high-asphaltene concentration data from vapor-pressure osmometry. This paper examines the capability of the termination/propagation model for association to represent low-concentration behavior. The addition of an additional strongly associating fraction to the model is necessary to obtain dimer formation over the observed range of concentrations. Unfortunately, the data required to fit such a model with confidence are lacking. Data from ultracentrifugation of asphaltene aggregates can also be fitted to a termination/propagation model. Transient measurements of ultracentrifuge concentration profiles have the potential to enable more comprehensive models of association behavior, especially when applied to subfractions with known aggregation behavior.