Temperature and Solvent Effect on the Molecular Size and Shape of Heavy Oil Fractions

Energy Fuels, 2012, 26 (2), pp 1070–1074

Temperature and Solvent Effect on the Molecular Size and Shape of Heavy Oil Fractions

Wenpo Ren†‡, Chaohe Yang*‡, and Honghong Shan‡

yangch@upc.edu.cn

† Petrochemical Research Institute, PetroChina Company Limited, Beijing 100195, People’s Republic of China

‡ State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266555, People’s Republic of China

Abstract

Researchers fractionated two kinds of heavy oil into eight fractions by liquid–solid adsorption chromatography. They determined the viscosity curves of relative viscosity versus concentration for dilute solutions of heavy oil fractions using the isovolume viscosity determination method.

The intrinsic viscosity was obtained according to the Einstein law.  Subsequently, they calculated equivalent sphere hydrodynamic diameter.  Results show that the equivalent sphere hydrodynamic diameters of heavy oil fractions are 1.1–4.0 nm under the experimental condition, while the molecular size of asphaltene is much larger than that of other fractions. The molecular size is not only related to the molecular weight but also affected by the spatial configuration of the heavy oil molecule.

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