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Updated: May 4, 2026

Studying the Effects of Temperature on the Nucleation and Growth of Nanoparticles by Liquid-Cell Transmission Electron Microscopy
Published on: February 17, 2021
Effect of temperature on morphologies of evaporation-triggered asphaltene nanoaggregates
Mahsa Mehranfar1, Ravi Gaikwad, Siddhartha Das
1Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta , Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Abstract:
We use atomic force microscopy to observe the structural changes in petroleum-asphaltene aggregates in air as a function of temperature. The aggregates are obtained by evaporating a toluene solution containing asphaltene. Increase in temperature leads to transition from self-assembled fractal structures to substantially larger mobile "liquid-like" domains that show distinct tendencies of substrate repulsion and self-coalescence. This new aggregation dynamics of asphaltene can be explained by temperature-induced transition of asphaltene from pure amorphous to liquid crystalline phase. Observation of this new phenomenon for asphaltene will have wide implications for asphaltene handling and separation.
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