The present invention relates to an apparatus for measuring the
flocculation threshold of colloidal media, particularly asphaltenes, by adding an aliphatic
solvent, the apparatus comprising: - a measuring unit (10) operating by direct optical transmission and including a measuring chamber (101) for receiving the medium, a
light emitter (12) for emitting a
light beam entering the measuring chamber in an emission direction, and a
photodetector (14) for directly receiving the
light beam exiting the measuring chamber and transmitting a current when it receives
luminous flux; - a
control system comprising a
system (17) for driving the
light emitter configured to vary the
luminous intensity of the emitted
light beam between a minimum and a maximum value, and a measuring
system (18) for measuring the current transmitted by the
photodetector (14), the measuring
system (18) comprising: a system configured to receive the current transmitted by the
photodetector (14). The system includes a current-to-
voltage converter (19) for transmitting
voltage, the converter (19) comprising a controlled switch (190) configured to distribute current in a loop selected from at least two impedance loops (191, 192) having different impedances; a
variable gain amplifier (20) configured to receive the
voltage delivered by the current-to-
voltage converter (19) and deliver a voltage equal to or proportional to the input voltage; an analog-to-
digital converter (21) configured to receive the voltage delivered by the
variable gain amplifier (20) and deliver a
digital signal (S) representing the amount of current delivered by the optical
receiver; and a
management system (22) for a
control system (16) configured to control the drive system (17), the switch (19), and the
variable gain amplifier (20).