Scaling laws for diffusion coefficients in mixtures of alkanes

Natural fluids, such as crude oils, are often mixtures of a broad range of different molecules, and in situ measurement of their composition is highly desirable. Furthermore, the relationship between their composition and their physical properties has always been a challenge for such mixtures. We have analyzed diffusion in alkane mixtures to find a power law for the self-diffusion coefficient in terms of molecular sizes. We demonstrate that this power law can be used to obtain the molecular size distribution of crude oils using noninvasive measurements of diffusion distributions.