Prediction of wax content in crude oil and petroleum fraction by proton NMR

In this study, we develop a simple method for estimation of wax content in crude oil and their fractions. The traditional way of wax estimation follows low-temperature chemical extraction based gravimetric methods; those are tedious, time-consuming, need a lot of chemicals and solvents and may produce an erroneous result if not done properly. This study proposes an alternative method i.e. ¹H NMR based correlation study to Englar Holde’s wax determination method. In this study, the NMR derived structural parameters of petroleum fractions are used to estimate the wax content of petroleum fractions. A Model equation is developed based on Fourier equation and validated with different Indian origin samples with a proper fitting and high predictability.