Relations between Asphaltene Structures and Their Physical and Chemical Properties:  The Rosary-Type Structure

Abstract

The proposition of the hypothesis-relating structure with properties of asphaltenes is a very important endeavor. In view of their complexity, being an intricate mixture of high-molecular-mass compounds, experimental and theoretical procedures must be designed to check whether the structures proposed are consistent with expected and found behavior. During recent years, a structural characteristic of asphaltene, whereby the several polycyclic systems present in them are joined by flexible aliphatic chains, has been proposed by several authors. For simplicity, we will refer to this as the rosary-type structure. In this paper, using both reported as well as new experimental and theoretical results, an attempt is made to show how asphaltene properties, such as molecular-mass distribution, molecular fragmentation, solubility, adsorption, trapping of molecules, solvent swelling, and aging, could be accounted for in terms of the above rosary-type structures.