Role of HZSM-5 Aluminosilicates on Asphaltenes Deposition by High-Throughput in Situ Characterizations of a Microreservoir

Hydrocarbon reservoirs are complex in their mineralogy and chemistry. Microfluidics offers an effective platform for rapid, in situ characterizations at experimental conditions that intend to simulate sandstone reservoirs (near wellbore, in production time scale). We have begun to examine the influence of the Al₂O₃/SiO₂ ratio (an important characteristic of reservoir mineralogy) on asphaltenes precipitated in quartz packed-bed microreactors using in situ Raman spectroscopy (2D to 3D mapping), UV-vis spectroscopy, and pressure sensors. The reservoir matrix was created by injecting 707 nm·aggregate^-1 HZSM-5 zeolite fine particles (a model aluminosilicate available with Al₂O₃/SiO₂ ratios of 1/91 and 1/26) on a quartz bed. The methodologies were developed to identify the effect of the chemical interactions, giving insights about asphaltenes' sheet size (nm) and bed occupancy variations. Our results show that, in the precipitation process, an Al₂O₃/SiO₂ ratio of 1/26 leads to 13% higher asphaltenes' sheet size and >10% higher bed occupancy compared to a bed with no Al₂O₃ particles. When increasing the ratio, the number of pore volumes required to plug the pore throats increases, leading to greater deposit thickness. Our findings support that the Al₂O₃ content delays asphaltenes' nanoaggregation and has higher selectivity toward bigger molecules.