Revisiting the flocculation kinetics of destabilized asphaltenes

A comprehensive review of the recently published work on asphaltene destabilization and flocculation kinetics is presented. Four different experimental techniques were used to study asphaltenes undergoing flocculation process in crude oils and model oils. The asphaltenes were destabilized by different n-alkanes and a geometric population balance with the Smoluchowski collision kernel was used to model the asphaltene aggregation process. Additionally, by postulating a relation between the aggregation collision efficiency and the solubility parameter of asphaltenes and the solution, a unified model of asphaltene aggregation model was developed. When the aggregation model is applied to the experimental data obtained from several different crude oil and model oils, the detection time curves collapsed onto a universal single line, indicating that the model successfully captures the underlying physics of the observed process. [Display omitted] •Asphaltenes undergo slow aggregation at low n-alkane concentration in oil-alkane mixtures.•There is no such thing as “onset point” of asphaltene precipitation.•Kinetics of asphaltene aggregation is explained by the unified aggregation model.•Soluble and Insoluble asphaltenes clusters differ on their cluster fractal dimension.