Asphaltene deposition is one of the major flow assurance problems in upstream and downstream crude oil recovery operations. In order to prevent potential loss and reduce downtime due to asphaltenes, it is critical to understand the physics of asphaltene adsorption. This study presents a preliminary investigation of asphaltene adsorption from crude oils onto stainless-steel surfaces using the quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D) technique and proposes a theoretical interpretation of the deposition mechanism for asphaltene molecules. The kinetics of deposition at different concentrations was examined, and the sizes of the deposited asphaltene molecules were estimated from the initial adsorption kinetics. Numerical analysis of the experimental data using the theoretical two-step deposition model was attempted, and the optimized adsorption parameters proved to be quite close to those values obtained for some rock types in earlier adsorption studies. Despite asphaltene precipitation increasing with increasing heptane percentage, the deposition of asphaltenes was found to be maximum at 70 vol% heptane content. The performance of a commercial inhibitor was then assessed under different conditions using the developed experimental metrics, and the inhibitor was found to be able to reduce the maximum deposition amount at the solubility with 70 vol% heptane fraction, which happens to be the same condition that generates the largest amount of deposition. The information gained on the solubility effect and inhibitor performance is essential to help the industry better manage asphaltene-related flow assurance problems in crude oil recovery.

中文翻译：

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用耗散的石英晶体微天平研究不锈钢表面上沥青质的沉积

沥青质沉积是上游和下游原油回收作业中主要的流量保证问题之一。为了防止潜在损失并减少由于沥青质引起的停机时间，了解沥青质吸附的物理原理至关重要。这项研究提供了初步研究，利用耗散石英晶体微天平（QCM-D）技术将原油中的沥青质吸附到不锈钢表面，并提出了有关沥青质分子沉积机理的理论解释。检查了不同浓度下的沉积动力学，并从初始吸附动力学估算了沉积的沥青质分子的大小。尝试使用理论上的两步沉积模型对实验数据进行数值分析，优化的吸附参数已证明与早期吸附研究中某些岩石类型获得的值非常接近。尽管沥青质的沉淀随着庚烷百分比的增加而增加，但是发现沥青质的沉积在庚烷含量为70％（体积）时最大。然后，使用已开发的实验指标，在不同条件下评估了商用抑制剂的性能，发现该抑制剂能够在溶解度为70 vol％庚烷馏分的情况下降低最大沉积量，这恰好与产生最大的沉积量。获得的有关溶解度效应和抑制剂性能的信息对于帮助行业更好地管理原油开采中与沥青质有关的流量保证问题至关重要。