The Effect of Water on Asphaltene Aggregation and Viscosity of Crude Oil: a MD Simulation Study

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-415-0_43How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Asphaltene; Crude Oil Viscosity; MD Simulations

Abstract

A thorough comprehension of the oil-water interactions and their rheological response in the petroleum industry is quite essential. Despite the prior works have demonstrated the significant role of asphaltene in the formation of water in crude oil (W/O) emulsions, the clarification of how the increasing water content affects the aggregation state of asphaltenes, and the molecular mechanism of viscosity alterations in crude oil systems remain obscured, especially in lower water content environments. Therefore, we performed molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to investigate the structural response of asphaltene aggregation and rheological behaviors of crude oil systems under the ever-increasing water conditions. Our research findings indicate that with the continuous introduction of water, the original bulk-phase aggregation of asphaltenes transforms into interfacial adsorption. The hydrogen bonds at the oil-water interface strengthen the asphaltene aggregation behavior. Furthermore, the overall viscosity of the crude oil system consistently decreases with water addition, primarily influenced by the interaction between asphaltenes and the surrounding dispersing medium. The strength of interactions between water and polar oil components also influences the viscosity of crude oil systems to some extent. These microscopic insights contribute to enriching our understanding of the intricate interplay between asphaltenes and water, as well as the stability of W/O emulsions.

Copyright

© 2024 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Bojin Zhu
AU  - Qingyang Hu
AU  - Jun Zhang
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/05/14
TI  - The Effect of Water on Asphaltene Aggregation and Viscosity of Crude Oil: a MD Simulation Study
BT  - Proceedings of the 2023 9th International Conference on Advances in Energy Resources and Environment Engineering (ICAESEE 2023)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 407
EP  - 413
SN  - 2589-4943
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-415-0_43
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-415-0_43
ID  - Zhu2024
ER  -