Artificial intelligence-based framework for precise prediction of asphaltene particle aggregation kinetics in petroleum recovery

The precipitation and deposition of asphaltene on solid surfaces present a significant challenge throughout all stages of petroleum recovery, from hydrocarbon reservoirs in porous media to wellbore and transfer pipelines. A comprehensive understanding of asphaltene aggregation phenomena is crucial for controlling deposition issues. In addition to experimental studies, accurate prediction of asphaltene aggregation kinetics, which has received less attention in previous research, is essential. This study proposes an artificial intelligence-based framework for precisely predicting asphaltene particle aggregation kinetics. Different techniques were utilized to predict the asphaltene aggregate diameter as a function of pressure, temperature, oil specific gravity, and oil asphaltene content. These methods included the adaptive neuro-fuzzy interference system (ANFIS), radial basis function (RBF) neural network optimized with the Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO) algorithm, extreme learning machine (ELM), and multi-layer perceptron (MLP) coupled with Bayesian Regularization (BR), Levenberg–Marquardt (LM), and Scaled Conjugate Gradient (SCG) algorithms. The models were constructed using a series of published data. The results indicate the excellent correlation between predicted and experimental values using various models. However, the GWO-RBF modeling strategy demonstrated the highest accuracy among the developed models, with a determination coefficient, average absolute relative deviation percent, and root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.9993, 1.1326%, and 0.0537, respectively, for the total data.