Experimental calculation of permeability reduction of porous medium by asphaltene precipitation in crude oil systems

In this work, we prepared the data of the permeability reduction by asphaltene precipitation in porous medium and precipitation and re-dissolution of asphaltenes were studied for an Iranian relatively heavy crude oil system. A series of experiments were designed and carried out to quantitatively obtain the permeability reduction in slim tube porous media and examine the amount and reversibility of asphaltenes precipitation upon the change in the solvent concentration along with the temperature. Experiments were conducted in both porous and non-porous media. As a porous medium, a slim tube apparatus was used which is a one- dimensional model reservoir. Generally, with these experiments obtained the amount of permeability reduction in porous medium and also showed that the precipitation is completely reversible for oil under study upon both composition and temperature changes. n-Heptane was used as the precipitant, and a temperature range of 30 to 70°C was applied to perform the temperature effect tests.