Browsing by Author "Guerrero-Aconcha, Uriel Enrique"
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- ItemOpen AccessThe Diffusion Coefficient of Liquid and Gaseous Solvents in Heavy Oil and Bitumen(2009-09) Guerrero-Aconcha, Uriel Enrique; Kantzas, ApostolosThe main objective of this research is to study the diffusion process of liquid and gaseous solvents in heavy oil and bitumen, with the aim of obtain the diffusion coefficient. The diffusion of n-hexane, n-heptane and octane in liquid phase and the diffusion of gaseous propane and carbon dioxide was monitored using x-ray computed tomography. The concentration and density profiles were obtained from the x-ray measurements and the data was used as entry for the slopes and intercepts model and for the non-iterative finite volume method to obtain the diffusion coefficients. The results show a strong dependency of the diffusion coefficient on the concentration of solvent in the system. The data obtained agree with the literature of less complex systems. The diffusion of carbon dioxide differs from the diffusion of hydrocarbon solvents. The diffusion coefficient can be both, an increasing or decreasing function of concentration depending on the nature of the diffusing solvent. Predictions of the diffusion coefficients of the systems studied here were also performed using the Vignes model. The model successfully predicts the diffusion coefficient for hydrocarbon solvents in heavy oil. However the accuracy of the Vignes equation diminishes as the viscosity of the oil phase increases. The results of this study can be applied in the simulation and understanding of the solvent based enhanced recovery processes for heavy oil and bitumen reservoirs.
- ItemOpen AccessThe diffusion coeffiicient of liquid and gaseous solvents in heavy oil and bitument(2009) Guerrero-Aconcha, Uriel Enrique; Kantzas, Apostolos
- ItemOpen AccessThermo-Chemical Recovery of Bitumen(2014-12-24) Guerrero-Aconcha, Uriel Enrique; Kantzas, ApostolosCanada has the third-largest oil reserves in the world, after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Of Canada’s 173 billion barrels of oil reserves, 170 billion barrels are located in Alberta, and about 168 billion barrels are recoverable bitumen. Of them, 80% are recoverable by in-situ techniques where the Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) process is called to be the number one method of bitumen production for the next 15 years. SAGD is an energy intensive process that requires optimization. The addition of hydrocarbon solvents such as propane, butane, hexane and diluents has been explored for the last 10 years as a form to improve oil production rates. In this research, the addition of surface active agents to the steam is studied as a novel way to increase oil production rates during SAGD. The mechanism by which the surface active agents will increase bitumen production has been proposed as oil in water emulsification. It has been suggested that the emulsification process in the porous media is controlled mainly by the wettability of the rock rather than the interfacial tension and that water wet rock will lead to O/W emulsions. Laboratory experiments suggest that the addition of surface active agents to the steam increases oil production by means of O/W emulsions and that the recovery factor will be increased as well. Finally the results of a field pilot are presented and they suggest that at field scale the addition of surface active agents has the potential to increase bitumen production during SAGD operations.