Assessing the Asphaltene Adsorption on Metal Oxide Nanoparticles

The Taguchi design of experiments (DOE) approach is adopted here to evaluate the impact of effective factors such as nanoparticles type, nanoparticles to model solution mass ratio, asphaltene structure, and temperature on asphaltene adsorption equilibrium. Herein, the toluene asphaltene solution model is applied. Three commercially nanoparticles (SiO2, Al2O3, and TiO2) are used. Asphaltene characterizations are carried out by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. It is found that the nanoparticle type and asphaltene structure with a respective influence of 48.5% and 3.11% have the maximum and minimum contribution on the amount of adsorbed asphaltene at the selected levels respectively. Aluminum oxide nanoparticle has the maximum and silicon oxide nanoparticle shows the minimum adsorption. The temperature has no statistical significance. Asphaltenes with higher aromaticity have more tendencies for adsorption on nanoparticles.