May 2007
Journal of Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry
Volume 5 Issue 12, pp 1873–1877
Journal
Structure Elucidation of C80, C81 and C82 Isoprenoid Tetra Acids Responsible for Naphthenate Deposition in Crude Oil Production
A series of C80 isoprenoid 20-bis-16, 16’-biphytanyl tetra acids has previously been found to be responsible for calcium naphthenate scaling in crude oil processing. This paper describes the structure elucidation by high-field NMR spectroscopy of the structures of the series of homologous C80 tetra acids containing 4-8 five-membered rings. In addition, the structures of methyl-substituted C81 and C82 analogues containing 7 and 8 five-membered rings have been determined for the first time. The biosynthetic implications are discussed.