A comparison of computation results for molecular weight, critical temperat
ure, critical pressure and the acentric factor for 98 pure components using
different methods frequently utilised for pseudocomponents characterising
crude oil and petroleum fractions was made. It is shown that these methods
mostly afford the estimated parameters with large errors. On the example of
the true boiling point characterisation test, the possibility to use real
components instead of pseudocomponents is shown. For real components, all t
hermodynamic characteristics are known with high accuracy. In addition, by
the choice of real components, the user can take into account some specific
ities in the composition of the studied mixture.