Effects of aromatics, resins, and asphaltenes on oxidation behavior and kinetics of heavy crude oil

This research is intended to investigate the effects of aromatics, resins, and asphaltenes on the oxidation behavior of heavy crude oil. The results showed that aromatics had inhibition effects on exothermic behavior of the oil. The thermal effect of oil + resins in the low temperature oxidation (LTO) stage was more intense relative to other mixtures. Compared to other samples, the LTO activation energy of the oil plus asphaltenes was the lowest, 32.28 kJ/mol, indicating that asphaltenes obviously reduced the difficulty of LTO reactions of the oil. Aromatics, resins, and asphaltenes might play a negative role in the reactivity of coke formed.