Evaluation of co-volume mixing rules for bitumen liquid density and bubble pressure estimation

The Peng–Robinson cubic equation of state (CEOS) is widely used to predict thermodynamic properties of pure fluids and mixtures. The usual implementation of this CEOS requires critical properties of each pure component and combining rules for mixtures. Determining critical properties for components of heavy asymmetric mixtures such as bitumen is a challenge due to thermolysis at elevated temperatures. Group contribution (GC) methods were applied for the determination of critical properties of molecular representations developed by Sheremata for Athabasca vacuum tower bottoms (VTB). In contrast to other GC methods evaluated, the Marrero–Gani GC method yielded estimated critical properties with realistic, non-negative values, followed more consistent trends with molar mass and yielded normal boiling points consistent with high temperature simulated distillation data. Application of classical mixing rules to a heavy asymmetric mixture such as bitumen yields saturated liquid density and bubble pressure estimates in qualitative agreement with experimental data. However the errors are too large for engineering calculations. In this work, new composite mixing rules for computing co-volumes of asymmetric mixtures are developed and evaluated. For example, composite mixing rules give improved bubble point predictions for the binary mixture ethane + n-tetratetracontane. For VTB and VTB + decane mixtures the new composite mixing rules showed encouraging results in predicting bubble point pressures and liquid phase densities.