title: Revisiting the flocculation kinetics of destabilized asphaltenes.
abstract: A comprehensive review of the recently published work on asphaltene destabilization and flocculation kinetics is presented. Four different experimental techniques were used to study asphaltenes undergoing flocculation process in crude oils and model oils. The asphaltenes were destabilized by different n-alkanes and a geometric population balance with the Smoluchowski collision kernel was used to model the asphaltene aggregation process. Additionally, by postulating a relation between the aggregation collision efficiency and the solubility parameter of asphaltenes and the solution, a unified model of asphaltene aggregation model was developed. When the aggregation model is applied to the experimental data obtained from several different crude oil and model oils, the detection time curves collapsed onto a universal single line, indicating that the model successfully captures the underlying physics of the observed process.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2136, USA.
authors.forename: Cláudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Vilas Bôas Fávero
authors.affiliation: ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company, Spring, TX 77389, USA.
authors.forename: Tabish
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Maqbool
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hoepfner
authors.affiliation: Phillips 66, Bartlesville, OK 74005-5400, USA.
authors.forename: Nasim
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Haji-Akbari
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2136, USA. Electronic address: sfogler@umich.edu.
authors.forename: H Scott
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Fogler
keywords: Asphaltene flocculation; Asphaltene precipitation; Colloidal stability; Smoluchowski population balance; Steric stabilization