Wax Content by DSC
Wax Content by DSC
Wax Content by DSC
Received 24 March 2003; received in revised form 24 March 2003; accepted 30 June 2003
Abstract
By the use of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), a new method to measure the wax content of crude oil has been developed. In this
paper, the wax content of a crude oil is proposed and proved to be the Q (total thermal effect of wax precipitation in sample) ratio of the
crude oil and its corresponding wax obtained by using standard acetone method, i.e. Qoil /Qwax . For the 14 studied crude oils with the wax
content ranging from 1 to 27 wt.%, the wax contents determined by the presented method are in good agreement with those determined by
standard acetone method, with an absolute average deviation of only 0.82 wt.%. This method has an advantage over reported DSC methods
in which the exact dissolution or precipitation enthalpy of wax is a must. It is also found that the wax contents determined by either of the
two methods show good linear relationship with the total thermal effect Qoil , with the correlation coefficients over 0.96. According to the
empirical correlations, the wax content of a crude oil can be easily determined by using the DSC total thermal effect Qoil . In addition and
more significantly, the new method can be applied to improve the accuracy in determining the amount of precipitated wax in a waxy crude oil
at different temperatures.
© 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
0040-6031/$ – see front matter © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0040-6031(03)00367-8
24 J. Chen et al. / Thermochimica Acta 410 (2004) 23–26
3. Results and discussion where cwax (wt.%) is wax content of crude oil, Qoil (J/g)
is the total thermal effect Q of crude oil between WAT and
3.1. Experiment results −20 ◦ C.
The linear relation between the Qoil and the corresponding
The wax contents of all the fourteen crude oils are de- wax contents determined by the standard acetone method
termined using both the presented DSC technique and the can be described as Eq. (2) with a correlation coefficient of
standard acetone method. The results given in Table 2 show R2 = 0.9651.
that the Qoil /Qwax values are in good agreement with wax
contents determined by standard acetone method, and there- cwax = 0.73Qoil + 0.74 (2)
fore Qoil /Qwax can be used to determine the wax content.
The average absolute deviation is 0.82 wt.%, and the aver- The comparison of measured wax contents and computed
age relative deviation is 6.996%. ones by Eqs. (1) and (2) is shown in Table 3 and Fig. 3. The
average absolute deviation of wax contents between Eq. (1)
3.2. Empirical equations and the Qoil /Qwax method or between Eq. (2) and the stan-
dard acetone method is within an acceptable level. Because
Good linear relations can be found between the Qoil and the wax content results from the two methods are in good
the corresponding wax contents determined by both standard agreement, there is minor difference between the two em-
acetone method and Qoil /Qwax method (see Fig. 2). pirical equations with only less than 0.5 wt.% of absolute
The linear relation between the Qoil and the correspond- deviation within the wax content range of 0–27 wt.%. Ac-
ing wax contents determined by Qoil /Qwax method can be cording to Eq. (1) or Eq. (2), the wax content of any crude
expressed as Eq. (1) with a correlation coefficient of R2 = oil can be easily computed provided that the total thermal
0.9837. effect Q of the wax precipitation in crude oil between WAT
and −20 ◦ C was obtained.
cwax = 0.75Qoil + 0.20 (1)
3.3. Application in determination of precipitated wax
30
Qoil /Q wax method at different temperatures
Wax content / wt%
Table 2
Comparison of the two wax content determination methods
Sample no. Total thermal effect Q (J/g) Wax contenta (wt.%) Deviation (wt.%) Relative deviation (%)
Qwax Qoil A B
1 145.6 29.07 19.96 20.18 −0.22 −1.09
2 128.6 32.34 25.14 26.29 −1.15 −4.37
3 133.6 25.54 19.11 21.51 −2.40 −11.16
4 145.9 14.49 9.93 10.12 −0.19 −1.88
5 117.1 10.12 8.65 9.62 −0.97 −10.08
6 122.8 13.48 10.97 10.93 0.04 0.37
7 139.8 12.89 9.22 9.71 −0.49 −5.05
8 140.5 27.56 19.61 19.60 0.01 0.05
9 125.9 27.99 22.23 21.23 1.00 4.71
10 133.4 2.00 1.50 1.58 −0.08 −5.06
11 125.9 21.67 17.21 15.99 1.22 7.63
12 134.3 19.32 14.39 12.91 1.48 11.46
13 128.0 10.06 7.86 8.37 −0.51 −6.09
14 138.3 5.98 4.32 6.08 −1.76 −28.95
Absolute average 0.82 6.996
Deviation = A − B; relative deviation = ((A − B)/B) × 100%.
a Wax content A was determined by Q /Q
oil wax ; wax content B, standard acetone method.
26 J. Chen et al. / Thermochimica Acta 410 (2004) 23–26
Table 3
Deviations of computed and measured wax contents
Item Number of Absolute deviation Relative deviation
data, n
Maximum Average Standard Maximum Average Standard
(wt.%) (wt.%) deviation (%) (%) deviation
Eq. (1) 14 1.75 0.72 0.51 12.00 6.14 3.58
Eq. (2) 14 2.12 1.07 0.70 39.24 10.36 9.71
Note: Absolute average deviation = (1/n) n1 |cc − cm |; average relative deviation = (1/n) n1 |cc − cm |/cm ; standard deviation =
2
n (cc − cm )2 − |cc − cm | /n(n − 1), where cc , cm are calculated and measured wax contents.
Q oil/Q wax method 2. Two empirical correlations have been established on the
basis of good linear relations between Qoil and the wax
20 contents determined by both standard acetone method and
Qoil /Qwax method. Those make it easier to determine the
wax content of crude oils.
3. The new established correlations open a new way to im-
10
prove the accuracy of computing the amount of precipi-
tated wax in crude oils at different temperatures.
0
0 10 20 30 References
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