INVESTIGATION ON THE FLOCCULATION OF ASPHALTENES AND THE COLLOIDAL STABILITY OF THE CRUDE-OIL FRACTION (GREATER-THAN-210-DEGREES-C)

Several problems are encountered with asphaltenes during the exploitat ion, transportation, storage and treatment of crude oil. The purpose o f the present work was to study the behaviour of the crude oil fractio n (>210 degrees C) by varying the temperature and doping with some hyd rocarbons including solid paraffin and aromatic concentrate. The effec t of flooding water was investigated. A preliminary characterization s tudy on asphaltenes removed from the crude oil using two different sol vents was performed. The state of the oil was determined by the stabil ity factor which indicates the susceptibility of asphaltenes to agglom erate or to disperse in the continuous phase.