Solaimany Nazar - Faculty of Chemical Engineering Department, Isfahan University, Isfahan, Iran
Dabir - Faculty of Chemical Engineering Department, AmirKabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

The formation of wax crystals in petroleum fluids, due to decreasing in solubility of the heavy hydrocarbon components causes serious operational problems in the oil industry. A predictive approach to calculating the wax crystallization would help to control the deposition. The objective of this paper is to develop a thermodynamic model that is capable of predicting wax precipitation. The regular solution theory has been modified for the solid – liquid equilibrium modeling. The results are presented and compared to the reported experimental deposition data. It is shown that the model prediction is in an excellent agreement with these data.

Wax; Crude Oil; Deposition