(64f) Molecular Structure of Heavy Oil Revealed - 3: High Resolution Atomic Force Microscopy - Perspectives and Examples in Heavy Oil Characterization

Identification of complex molecular mixtures poses a tremendous challenge for petroleum science. In our team at IBM Research, we developed a tool to visualize the structure and other molecular properties of individual molecules in such mixtures. In this talk, I will present two recent studies investigating heavy oil mixtures of different origin and treatment that were investigated in a broad consortium of corporate research organizations. We resolved the atomic structure of dozens of individual molecules in ten different mixtures of real world value chains in upstream and downstream oil production. Furthermore, the results are compared to mass spectrometry data to ensure a consistent interpretation.

Additionally, we are establishing a database for AFM identification of molecular substructures. To this end, we studied several model compounds with commonly occurring moieties, among aliphatic chains and rings. These studies already allowed the identification of several motifs in natural samples.