Assessing the Asphaltene Adsorption on Metal Oxide Nanoparticles

The Taguchi design of experiments (DOE) approach is adopted here to evaluate the impact ofeffective factors such as nanoparticles type, nanoparticles to model solution mass ratio, asphaltenestructure, and temperature on asphaltene adsorption equilibrium. Herein, the toluene-asphaltenesolution model is applied. Three commercially nanoparticles (SiO2, Al2O3, and TiO2) are used.Asphaltene characterizations are carried out by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. It is found that thenanoparticle type and asphaltene structure with a respective influence of 48.5% and 3.11% have themaximum and minimum contribution on the amount of adsorbed asphaltene at the selected levelsrespectively. Aluminum oxide nanoparticle has the maximum and silicon oxide nanoparticle showsthe minimum adsorption. The temperature has no statistical significance. Asphaltenes with higheraromaticity have more tendencies for adsorption on nanoparticles.