An Investigation of the Effect of Aromatic, Anionic and Nonionic Inhibitors on the Onset of Asphaltene Precipitation

Abstract

The organic deposition particularly asphaltenes has many detrimental effects on the oil industries, such as plugging in pipelines, wellbore and facilities and subsequently, considerable reduction in well productivity.Asphaltenes are the most polar fractions, which they have been dispersed as colloidal clusters in crude oil. The accumulation of these clusters lead to the flocculation of colloids, and accordingly, formation of precipitation. Adding inhibitor is one of the ways to prevent clustering of asphaltene precipitation in crude oil. In this study, the effect of inhibitors to prevent asphaltene precipitation was investigated by viscometric method. At first, the different concentrations (1000 ppm, 2000 ppm, 10000 ppm and 20000 ppm) of some aromatic, anionic and nonionic inhibitors were prepared in a dead crude oil sample, and then the inhibition strength of samples was measured. The results showed that inhibition strength of inhibitors in low to moderate (1000 ppm – 10000 ppm) concentrations has a regular pattern, and it is associated with functional groups in chemical structure of inhibitors.