The Scott-Magat Polymer Theory for Determining Onset of Precipitation of Dissolved Asphaltene in the Solvent + Precipitant Solution

The Scott-Magat polymer theory, which assumes that polymers have heterogeneous structure and takes into account the polydispersity in the molecular weight of polymers, is a method to model asphaltene precipitation conditions. The traditional Scott-Magat polymer theory based models assume that the precipitated phase consists of asphaltene only. In the present work, we introduce a model based on the Scott-Magat polymer theory assuming that the precipitated phase consists of asphaltene and non-asphaltene components and the oil phase is free of asphaltene (Due to low concentration of asphaltene in the oil phase). It is shown that the latter model is similar to a previously reported thermodynamic model in the literature based on the Flory-Huggins polymer theory (R. Cimino, S. Correra, P.A. Sacomani, C. Carniani, “Thermodynamic Modelling for Prediction of Asphaltene Deposition in Live Oils”, SPE 28993, Presented at the SPE International Symposium on Oilfield Chemistry held in San Antonio, TX, USA, 14-17 February 1995), in which it is assumed that asphaltene has a homogeneous structure and the precipitated phase consists of asphaltene and non-asphaltene components and the oil phase is free of asphaltene.