Application of time domain nuclear magnetic resonance (TD-NMR) for study of the distillation curve of petroleum

Crude oil distillates are a highly useful industrial product, mainly for energy generation. Unfortunately, they are rarely studied, mainly due to the low accessibility to products directly obtained from the distillation process, which is a laborious, expensive, and time-consuming operation. This work presents and discusses the use of time-domain nuclear magnetic resonance (TD-NMR) as a simple, affordable, and straightforward tool for the development of correlations supported on the transverse relaxation time (T₂) and boiling temperature. The results point out a high convergence between TD-NMR experimental data and the ASTM D2892 method for distillates from light, medium, and heavy oils, with up to 52.20% of accumulated mass and boiling point temperature (T_b) up to 400°C. Furthermore, an unprecedented relationship between T₂ values and the accumulated mass of the distillates is first demonstrated. This new insight opens new perspectives for future prediction of accumulated mass for unknown crude oils, placing the TD-NMR relaxometry as an appeal spectroscopy approach with a potential to meaningfully contribute to the daily refining petrochemical industry field operations.