Determination of Saturates, Aromatics, and Polars in Crude Oil by ¹³C NMR and Support Vector Regression with Variable Selection by Genetic Algorithm

The contents of saturates, aromatics, and polars in crude oil were determined using carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (¹³C NMR) associated with support vector regression (SVR) and a genetic algorithm (GA) for the simultaneous selection of spectral variables and SVR model parameters. The developed models presented prediction sample errors of 4.4% (w/w) for saturates, 4.3% (w/w) for aromatics (w/w), and 3.7% (w/w) for polars. These results are acceptable for the petroleum industry, considering that the error obtained by the standard methodology is 5% (w/w), which is the maximum value of variation allowed in SARA analysis. The proposed methodology made these determinations using small amounts of samples (approximately 2 mL) in a relatively short time (approximately 2 h)