Increasing petroleum demand will necessitate the exploitation and transformation of heavy oils worldwide. These hydrocarbon resources pose numerous challenges from production to refining. Their physical properties and those of asphaltenes in particular are poorly understood. Asphaltenes present major hindrances for efficient industrial processes. Many prior works have attempted to clarify the role of asphaltenes, from molecular description to the meso- and macro- scale aggregation of the elementary molecules they comprise. Nevertheless, a question of our colleagues of the process is still unanswered: 'What do asphaltenes look like in their natural medium, under harsh industrial conditions?'. In this contribution, we illustrate how nanofiltration of vacuum residue coupled with small and wide X-ray scattering techniques can significantly improve our understanding of the molecular aggregation process, particularly as a function of the temperature. We also discuss these results in the context of what is already known about asphaltene solutions in pure and good solvents.

Mesoscale organization of vacuum residue unraveled by nanofiltration and small and wide angle X-ray scattering

244th National Meeting (2012)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.