Assessing the effect of crushing on the X-ray diffraction pattern of the asphaltene sample

Asphaltenes are the most polarized crude oil component and are defined generally based on their solubility, not chemical characterizations. Asphaltenes are considered troublous in the oil industry because they tend to precipitate and deposit. It has been proved that the chemical reactivity of asphaltenes depends on their molecular structure. Asphaltenes' carbonaceous structures are assessed by the X-Ray diffraction technique, which is a major precise technique and nondestructive literally. XRD provides the structural parameters of asphaltene through the detected peaks' position. dm (distance between two aromatic sheets), dr (distance between saturate chains), Lc (average height of cluster perpendicular to the sheets plain), La (diameter of aromatic sheets), M (number of aromatic sheets in a cluster), Ra (number of aromatic rings in aromatic sheets), Cau (number of carbon in the aromatic unit), and fa (aromaticity index) are structural parameters obtained by this method. This paper aims to assess the effect of particle sizes of the analyzed asphaltene sample. The results indicate that asphaltene samples' crushing doesn’t have any tangible impact on the XRD pattern of asphaltene samples.

Keywords:

Asphaltene , X-ray Diffraction , , Crushing , Aromaticity ,