New insight into the role of the self-assembly of heteroatom compounds in heavy oil viscosity enhancement

Unveiling the role of heteroatom compounds in heavy oil viscosity is pivotal for finding targeted viscosity reduction methods to improve oil recovery. This research investigates the impact of heteroatoms in asphaltene molecules by utilizing quantum chemical calculations and molecular dynamics simulations to analyze their electrostatic potential characteristics, pairwise interactions, and dynamic behavior within realistic reservoirs. Heteroatom compounds can influence the molecular-level properties of asphaltenes and thus impact the macroscopic behavior of heavy oils. Research results suggest that the presence of ketone and aromatic rings in asphaltene molecules leads to the unrestricted movement of pi electrons due to their collective electronegativity. Two distinct configurations of asphaltene dimers, face-to-face, and edge-to-face, were observed. Intermolecular interactions were predominantly governed by van der Waals forces, highlighting their significant role in stabilizing asphaltene aggregates. The distribution of asphaltene molecules in the oil phase can be summarized as the "rebar-cement" theory. In the heteroatom-free system, the face-to-face peaks in the radial distribution function exhibit significantly reduced magnitudes compared to those in the heteroatom-containing system. This emphasizes the pivotal function of heteroatoms in connecting molecular components to form a more compact asphaltene structure, which may result in a higher viscosity of heavy oil. These findings give insight into the significance of heteroatoms in bridging molecular components and shaping the intricate structure of asphaltene and advance our understanding of heavy oil viscosity properties.

Evaluation of Asphalt Aging Using Multivariate Analysis Applied to Saturates, Aromatics, Resins, and Asphaltene Determinator Data

Asphalt is subjected to aging, leading to physical and chemical modifications reducing its performance. Recently, the Western Research Institute developed the SAR-AD method that allowed the separation of asphalt into eight fractions (saturates, aromatics 1, aromatics 2, aromatics 3, resins, asphaltenes 1, asphaltene 2, and asphaltenes 3). In this work, this analytical method was used to study asphalt aging processes in greater detail. Several asphalts of different origins and reconstituted blends were studied. These products were aged during several durations using a PAV (pressure aging vessel) between 0 and 48 h to collect information on the evolution of each SAR-AD fraction. Different evolutions were observed according to the initial asphalt composition and SAR-AD fraction studied. The saturated subfamily seemed to be slightly impacted by aging. The amount of three aromatic subfamilies decreased with a larger decrease of aromatics 3 than aromatics 2, itself larger than aromatics 1. The content of the resin subfamily increased after 48 h of PAV aging. The asphaltene 1 and asphaltene 2 subfamilies exhibited an increasing trend. Moreover, the quantity of asphaltenes 2 created seemed to correlate to the initial asphaltene content. The evolutions of the asphaltene 3 subfamily were not significant. However, a specific behavior was highlighted for the most asphaltenic sample. For this specific sample, the increase of resin content was weaker, the mass of asphaltenes 1 decreased, and the amount of asphaltenes 3 increased during aging. Given the large amount of data generated, an original approach was developed to statistically identify the most affected SAR-AD subfamily and determine correlations among them. Two PCAs (Principal Component Analysis) were conducted on asphalt SAR-AD data. This statistical analysis indicated two generic asphalt aging pathways. The first aging pathway could be the conversion of aromatics 2 into resins, with no evidence that resins could contribute to asphaltene creation. The second aging pathway showed the conversion of aromatics 3 directly into asphaltenes 2. These two aging pathways highlighted that the conversion of molecules in more polar ones during aging could skip SAR-AD subfamilies, meaning that asphaltenes could be created without involving resins.

Research on the Ability of Bio-rejuvenators to Disaggregate Oxidized Asphaltene Nanoclusters in Aged Asphalt

A real rejuvenator must have the ability to disaggregate oxidized asphaltene nanoclusters. However, few studies pay attention to the topic, and there is a lack of comparison of the disaggregation ability of different rejuvenators. Thus, the disaggregation ability and regeneration mechanism of three bio-rejuvenators (waste cooking oil (WCO), waste wood oil (WWO), and straw liquefied residue oil (SLRO)) on oxidized asphaltene nanoclusters were studied in this paper. Laboratory tests and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation were used to compare the effectiveness of the three bio-rejuvenators and reveal its corresponding mechanism. It is found that these bio-rejuvenators have a softening effect on aged asphalt binder, but not all of them can disaggregate oxidized asphaltene nanoclusters. The introduction of WWO and WCO can effectively disturb the nanoclusters caused by the increase of polar functional groups during the oxidation process. The effect of WWO is more significant, but neither of them can restore the asphaltene dispersion to the virgin asphalt binder. SLRO has an adverse effect on the disaggregation of oxidized asphaltene nanoclusters. WCO, WWO, and SLRO showed different disaggregation mechanisms, including ″pull-out, intercalation, and compression″, respectively. WCO and WWO can increase the activation energy reduced by aging in a short aging time, and SLRO makes the activation energy lower. Such findings can help enterprises screen more reasonable rejuvenators to facilitate the recycling of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) materials and promote the sustainable development of the construction industry.

Non-Covalent π-Stacking Interactions between Asphaltene and Porphyrin in Bitumen

In recent years, the dominant organizing role of non-covalent π-stacking interactions in the association of asphaltenes and porphyrins was criticized and replaced with cooperative forces that are mostly covalent in nature. Here, we show the significant contribution of non-covalent forces in stabilizing the π-stacking of asphaltenes and porphyrins. To understand the binding chemistry of metalloporphyrin-asphaltene, the interaction of nickel octaethylporphyrin with a series of model fragments for asphaltene was studied in two different pathways: axial coordination and π-stacking. Nickel octaethylporphyrin was specifically studied because a main fraction of vanadium and nickel metals in petroleum residues are chelated with porphyrins, and the refining processes in petroleum industries are affected by the significant detrimental impact of these metal compounds. The results of the extended transition state-natural orbital of chemical valence (ETS-NOCV) technique provide strong evidence that the bonding interaction in the π-stacking configuration is much preferred to the axial coordination. Energy decomposition analysis verifies the significant contribution of non-covalent forces in stabilizing the π-stacking of asphaltene-porphyrin, showing that there are other forces driving the formation of asphaltene-porphyrin stacks. Indeed, a non-negligible portion of these stabilizing forces is contributed by strong orbital mixing interactions through charge transfer between active centers; this contribution is mostly overlooked in π-stacking interactions. This matter includes the π-stacking interactions of asphaltene-asphaltene. Isosurfaces of deformation density (Δρ) provide better insights into the π-stacking preference. NOCV deformation densities are delocalized over the entire complex in the π-stacking conformer, leading to the multi-centric charge transfer zone; Δρ isosurfaces of axial coordination are mostly localized on the limited centers involved in chemical bonding.

Molecular structure characterization of asphaltene in the presence of inhibitors with nanoemulsions

Molecular structure characteristics and morphological features of asphaltene can be significantly influenced by the addition of asphaltene inhibitors (AI). We have recently developed a novel concept of using nanoemulsions (NE) as carriers for controlled release of asphaltene inhibitors, which could prohibit the precipitation problem with reduced AI quantity. In this work, X-ray diffraction (XRD) was utilized to investigate the changes in the stacking behaviour of asphaltenes in the presence of three cases: (i) strong organic acids (dodecyl benzene sulfonic acid, DBSA), (ii) nanoemulsions (blank NEs), and (iii) nanoemulsion loaded DBSA (DBSA NEs). Based on the XRD and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analyses, the stacking distance between aromatic rings of asphaltene was found to be increased by 22.2%, suggesting that the modification of the π system over the aromatic zone prevented the ultimate π-π interactions between asphaltene sheets. The evidence of multiple intermolecular interactions quantitatively obtained from Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) supported our proposed mechanism for controlled release effect and long-term asphaltene stability, i.e., the decrease of the aromaticity and the reduction in the aliphatic side chains of asphaltene. The refractory nature of asphaltenes was examined by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), which showed that the asphaltene structure was improved considerably and the coke yield was decreased by 62% due to the decrease of the cluster size and the increase of the stacking distance.