Evaluating steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence as a tool to study the behavior of asphaltene in toluene

A combination of steady-state fluorescence, fluorescence lifetime measurements and the determination of time-resolved emission spectra were employed to characterize asphaltene toluene solutions. Lifetime measurements were shown to be insensitive to the source of asphaltene or the alkane solvent from which asphaltene was precipitated. This insensitivity suggests that either the composition of Athabasca and Cold Lake asphaltene is very similar or that the fluorescence behavior is dominated by the same sub-set of fluorophores for the different samples. These results highlight the limitations in using fluorescence to characterize asphaltene solutions. Different dependencies were observed for the average lifetimes with the asphaltene concentration when measured at two different emission wavelengths (420 nm and 520 nm). This result suggests that different fluorophores underwent diverse interactions with other asphaltene molecules as the asphaltene concentration was raised, suggesting that models for asphaltene aggregation need to include molecular diversity.