ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 provides a deep explanation of the main characteristics and properties of crude oil and asphaltenes. The chapter is divided into two parts. In the first part, the reader finds an ample description of the physical and chemical properties of crude oil (i.e., density, viscosity, molecular weight, water content, and solubility) and the experimental methods involved in those properties’ determination. Some of the correlations used to predict properties based on the experimental determination of other properties are presented as well. The second part of the chapter is dedicated to the study of the properties, structure, and composition of asphaltenes. Methods to find the structure and composition of asphaltene, such as elemental analysis, ICP-MS, XPS, FTIR, Raman, and NMR spectroscopies are detailed in this part of the chapter.
