Asphaltene aggregation study conducted by Japan Petroleum Energy Center (JPEC) in 2011-2016, which is a part of Petroleomics Project, produced remarkable results for quantitative evaluation and estimation of asphaltene aggregation behavior. Hansen solubility parameter (HSP), Rayleigh scattering, small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) were applied mainly, and enabled us to examine the in-situ aggregation phenomenon under various conditions, in terms of solvent effect, relative degree of aggregation, size of aggregate, and hardness/softness of aggregate, respectively. We also utilized different types of model compounds which were synthesized originally in University of Alberta, to clarify the influence of chemical structure on solubility and molecular aggregation behavior. Through this project, we developed novel engineering tools to determine HSP of any molecules in heavy oil (JKU-HSP), aggregation index (AI) of aggregation phase, and phase distribution of each molecule (MCAM).
