Asphaltenes are heavy constituents of crude oil which affect the flow and viscosity of crude oil. They also stabilize water in oil emulsions which make the separation process of water from oil during the primary treatment processes for crude oils more difficult and cost much. Measuring asphaltenes is of great importance especially for crude oil production companies. Gravimetric and spectroscopy measurement methods are the basic techniques used by international references like ASTM and IP.  The gravimetric technique is based on the concept of asphaltenes are heptane insoluble and Toluene soluble, the asphaltenes are separated then weighted. Gravimetric method needs no sophisticated instruments, but it consumes a lot of time and no more than one sample could be measured with the same apparatus simultaneously. In this paper new methodology will be introduced as a modification of ASTM D6560 gravimetric methodology by using centrifuge technique in separation of Asphaltenes. The new methodology has the advantages of consuming little time, multiple samples processing, can be done in field not only in lab and has good repeatability and reproducibility values compared to reference gravimetric ASTM and IP methods.

Rapid and simple analytical method for measuring asphaltenes

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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