Asphaltene adsorption at solid surfaces is a ubiquitous phenomenon that begins within the production well and continues through the entire production chain. It is generally an undesirable phenomenon that causes damage within reservoirs, fouling of pipelines and transportation equipment, and fouling of refining and upgrading equipment. However, by virtue of this phenomenon, problematic asphaltenes may also be selectively removed from petroleum streams to produce partially upgraded petroleum, which has significantly improved handling, processing, and upgrading qualities. This review covers many basic aspects regarding the chemical and physical nature of asphaltenes and sorbents related to asphaltene adsorption.

Asphaltene Adsorption, a Literature Review

With the ever increasing demand for energy to meet the needs of growth in population and improvement in the living standards in particular in developing countries, the abundant unconventional oil reserves (about 70% of total world oil), such as heavy oil, oil/tar sands and shale oil, are playing an increasingly important role in securing global energy supply. Compared with the conventional reserves unconventional oil reserves are characterized by extremely high viscosity and density, combined with complex chemistry. As a result, petroleum production from unconventional oil reserves is much more difficult and costly with more serious environmental impacts. As a key underpinning science, understanding the interfacial phenomena involved in unconventional petroleum production, such as oil liberation from host rocks, oil–water emulsions and demulsification, is critical for developing novel processes to improve oil production while reducing GHG emission and other environmental impacts at a lower operating cost. In the past decade, significant efforts and advances have been made in applying the principles of interfacial sciences to better understand complex unconventional oil-systems, while many environmental and production challenges remain. In this critical review, the recent research findings and progress in the interfacial sciences related to unconventional petroleum production are critically reviewed. In particular, the chemistry of unconventional oils, liberation mechanisms of oil from host rocks and mechanisms of emulsion stability and destabilization in unconventional oil production systems are discussed in detail. This review also seeks to summarize the current state-of-the-art characterization techniques and brings forward the challenges and opportunities for future research in this important field of physical chemistry and petroleum.

Interfacial sciences in unconventional petroleum production: from fundamentals to applications

Asphaltenes: Separations, structural analysis and applications

SARA fractionation separates crude oil into fractions of saturates (S), aromatics (A), resins (R), and asphaltenes (A) based on the differences in their polarizability and polarity. Defined as a solubility class, asphaltenes are normally considered as a nuisance in the petroleum industry mainly as a result of their problematic precipitation and adsorption at oil–water and oil–solid interfaces. Because a broad range of molecules fall within the group of asphaltenes with distinct sizes and structures, considering the asphaltenes as a whole was noted to limit the deep understanding of governing mechanisms in asphaltene-induced problems. Extended-SARA (E-SARA) is proposed as a concept of asphaltene fractionation according to their interfacial activities and adsorption characteristics, providing critical information to correlate specific functional groups with certain characteristics of asphaltene aggregation, precipitation, and adsorption. Such knowledge is essential to addressing asphaltene-related problems ...

/pdf/fractionation-of-asphaltenes-in-understanding-their-role-in-ujqz8sdtb6.pdf

Fractionation of Asphaltenes in Understanding Their Role in Petroleum Emulsion Stability and Fouling

A review on novel applications of asphaltenes: A valuable waste

In order to throw light on the mechanism of organic compounds–clay interactions and to control the preparation of hydrophobic fillers, the effect of asphaltene adsorption from water-saturated toluene onto various clay minerals (kaolinite, illite) was studied. The modification of the clay surface charge and wettability were characterized, respectively, by microelectrophoresis and Washburn contact angle measurements. Further, the alteration of the surface area and chemical composition of the clay particles due to asphaltene adsorption were assessed using various methods such as N2-adsorption/desorption, X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements, FT-IR and scanning electronic microscopy. The data indicate that upon asphaltene adsorption, the clay particles become hydrophobic, their contact angle with water increases, while their surface charge and surface energy are reduced. Furthermore, according to XRD data, no swelling of the clay by asphaltenes occurs in the water-saturated toluene, indicating that asphaltene...

Hydrophobation of Clay Particles by Asphaltenes Adsorption

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

A. Jada

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

Hydrophobation of Clay Particles by Asphaltenes Adsorption