Petroleum could be seen as a system of asphaltenes dispersed in other petroleum components. The petroleum components excluding the asphaltenes are referred to in this paper as Petroleum Medium that Disperses the Asphaltenes – PMDA). This paper proposes a methodology to determine solubility parameter of the PMDA by identifying a model solvent which, when added to the petroleum, does not affect the asphaltenes phase behavior. In order to achieve such objective the asphaltenes precipitation onset (PO) of the petroleum was determined, followed by the identification of a solvent mixture which, when added to the petroleum, does not change the PO. The solubility parameter () of the PMDA was assumed equal to the solubility parameter of the identified solvent mixture.
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