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Data associated with 'Aggregation Behaviour of E-SARA Asphaltene Fractions Studied by Small-angle Neutron Scattering'

Ballard, Dewi and Qiao, Peiqi and Cattoz, Beatrice and Dowding, Peter J. and Prevost, Sylvain and Alshamsi, Mohammed and Charpentier, Thibaut V. J. and Roberts, Kevin J. and Xu, Zhenghe and Harbottle, David (2020) Data associated with 'Aggregation Behaviour of E-SARA Asphaltene Fractions Studied by Small-angle Neutron Scattering'. University of Leeds. [Dataset] https://doi.org/10.5518/823

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Using the Extended-SARA method to fractionate asphaltenes based on their interfacial activity, the current study reports the first results on the estimated size and shape of interfacially active (IAA) and remaining (RA) asphaltene nanoaggregates. These fractions have been reported to exhibit distinctly different chemical architectures that influence the size of asphaltene clusters in good and poor solvents. However, little is known about the building blocks, commonly referred to as nanoaggregates, which form these clusters and how those subtle differences in chemical architecture impact aggregation of asphaltenes. The nanoaggregate size and shape of IAA and RA was measured using small-angle neutron scattering (SANS). The characteristic length and asymptotic power-law exponent of whole asphaltenes (WA) extracted from heavy crude oil and dispersed in deuterated toluene were 28.0 Å 0.2 Å and 2.860.01, respectively, showing negligible variations with changing asphaltene concentration, source of asphaltenes (bitumen and heavy crude oil), and solvent aromaticity. For RA fractions, which account for 98.5 wt% of WA, the characteristic length and power-law exponent of 28.8 Å and 2.86 were comparable to that of WA, but in contrast to 59.7 Å and 2.20 for IAA.  A ~100% increase in the characteristic length and reduced power-law exponent of the IAA fraction confirms that these two asphaltene sub-fractions form dissimilar nanoaggregate structures.

Subjects: H000 - Engineering > H800 - Chemical, process & energy engineering > H810 - Chemical engineering
Divisions: Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences > School of Chemical and Process Engineering
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https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.0c00596Publication
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Date deposited: 01 Dec 2020 10:33
URI: http://archive.researchdata.leeds.ac.uk/id/eprint/785

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