Thermodynamic modeling of asphaltene precipitation in crude oil using light alkane solvents

One of important processes in petroleum industry is asphaltene extraction from crude oil using light alkane solvents. In this work, asphaltene precipitation in crude oil during alkane solvent titration has been studied. Also, PC-SAFT, Flory- Huggins and Solid models have been investigated to account the amount of asphaltene extraction from crude oil using light alkane solvents during deasphaltene processes. After mathematical formulation of these models, the tuning parameters were adjusted. In order to compare the performance of studied models, the amount of asphaltene extraction from crude oil using light alkane solvents. experimental data reported in the literature were correlated using deviation of the predicted asphaltene precipitation amount from their experimental results. The results show that the PC-SAFT EOS correlates more accurately the experimental results over a wide composition interval with deviation of 4.05 to 6.17% whereas modeling based on the Solid model is less accurate with deviation 10.03 to 21.3%.