Effect of Dispersant on the Kinetic of Asphaltene Settling using Turbidity Measurement Method

Organic deposits particularly, asphaltenes cause detrimental effect on the petroleum industry, because it causes to decreases produced oil and clogging the oil facilities. Generally, dispersants and inhibitors or asphaltene solvents are using for chemical controlling of asphaltene precipitation. The asphaltenes content in crude oil are stable under the certain conditions, but there is no certainty about the stability of system in another operational condition. So it is important to study the kinetics of asphaltene settling and deposition. In this work, we investigated the kinetics effect of the three dispersants on the stability of asphaltene aggregates using turbidity measurement and particle size distribution methods. Turbidity measurement showed as the dispersant strength rises;moreover, the turbidity of unstable sample containing dispersant less declines versus time. Asphaltene particle size distribution measurements showed that adding dispersant decrease the average diameter of asphaltene aggregates. Also, in this study the kinetics of asphaltene settling using power law model and the relations of the diluted suspensions was developed. The result of model showed the settling velocity of asphaltene has been decreased by adding dispersants.