PHASE CHANGES OF PETROLEUM MIXTURES BY MONITORING TEMPERATURE AND CONDUCTIVITY FOR PARAFFIN FORMATION

Along the petroleum transportation in pipelines and other stages of oil processing, paraffin generation is an important problem. In this work, an experimental methodology is proposed to quantify and characterize the paraffin formed in the crude oil. The thermometry technique was applied to determine the solubility profiles of the paraffin in different types of alkanes, all featuring short and linear chains. The conductivimetry technique was also used in the experiments as a filtering analytical method. An equilibrium cell and other required apparatus were projected and built to carry out the experiments. These devices permitted the simultaneous acquisition of temperature and conductivity data.