asphaltene flocculation onset detection with the image processing method

one of the most important problems in the upstream oil industries is heavy organic and asphaltene deposition that cause to plug in formations, production surface facilities, wellbore, and flow lines. determination of asphaltene precipitation, flocculation and aggregation mechanisms and asphaltene flocculation onset point are too important subjects in asphaltene deposition management. in this work, at first, three usual methods are applied for measuring onset of flocculation in some iranian asphaltenic crude oils. as it can be seen, these methods are sometimes unable to give any onset point and/or their results are not always accurate enough. here the image-processing concept is applied to develop a new effective and applicable procedure to detect asphaltene flocculation onset points. the obtained results show that the developed method not only has a good accuracy in asphaltene flocculation onset estimation especially in the most heavy and light asphaltenic crude oils, but also can be applied as powerful tool for research on kinetic growth of asphaltene particles. also this method can be used for onset point detection and kinetic growth of asphaltene particles in live oils at high pressure and temperature.