Asphaltene precipitation and deposition during production is always a big concern for petroleum industry. Asphaltenes deposition can cause damage and plugging of pipeline, near well-bore, production equipment and reduce the production capacity. In this research we focus on studying the deposition tendency of different fractions of asphaltenes using microfluidic system. Different fraction from precipitated asphaltenes were extracted from oil sample and field deposit. They were separated using different solvent-precipitant combination. The structures (island- type vs archipelago-type) of each fragment were identified by ultra-high resolution mass spectrometry. The deposit tendency of each fraction then was studied under microfluidic test method, which was recently published. The model oils containing asphaltenes fraction dissolved in toluene were mixed with <i>n-</i>heptane to induce the deposition within micro-reactor. Asphaltene deposition tendency and morphology were recorded and analyzed for each sub-fraction. The fraction with increased the ratio of archipelago structure asphaltenes was found to have higher deposition tendency than island-type fraction. The observed patent and structure correlation will be discussed in the presentation.

Study of deposition behavior of asphaltenes sub-fraction with microfluidic system

255th National Meeting (2018)

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