ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Data Journal

Structural insights into crude oil asphaltenes: A multi-parametric SANS/WANS study

Abstract: Asphaltenes are a complex and problematic fraction of crude oil that can precipitate, alter wettability and stabilise unwanted oil-in-water emulsions. Asphaltene molecules are generally thought to consist of one (or more) aromatic cores with alkyl side chains. When the asphaltenes precipitate from crude oil they are thought to do so by stacking of the aromatic cores. This can be seen in small angle scattering due to aggregation of carbon rich aromatic cores and in the wide angle scattering by a broad peak similar to that seen in graphite. However key questions remain, such as the proportion of asphaltenes that form these stacked aromatic cores. The prevailing model for asphaltene structure is based on the majority of asphaltene molecules aggregating through stacking, initial results have shown this may not be the case, we will use NIMROD to measure SANS/WANS to study this further.

Principal Investigator: Dr Tom Headen
Experimenter: Dr Michael Hoepfner

DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1710282

ISIS Experiment Number: RB1710282

Publisher: STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source

Data format: RAW/Nexus
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Data Citation

The recommended format for citing this dataset in a research publication is as:
[author], [date], [title], [publisher], [doi]

For Example:
Dr Tom Headen et al; (2017): Structural insights into crude oil asphaltenes: A multi-parametric SANS/WANS study, STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1710282

Data is released under the CC-BY-4.0 license.