Investigation of Experimental Conditions Impacting the Kinetics of Vapor Phase Combustion in Air Injection-Based Processes for Alberta Bitumen through Experimental and Simulation Modeling
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Abstract
When air is injected into a formation, it results in a series of reactions between a substantial number of different hydrocarbon species and oxygen present in the air. As these reactions occur on a wide temperature range (temperature dependence); thus, the crude oil composition is altered during the life of the process which puts on more complexities (time dependence) in the understanding of the process (chemical changes). Kinetics is the area in the combustion literature that deals with the chemical reactions occurring during the process and many researchers have tried to realize the nature of oxidation reactions to develop a better understanding of this recovery method. To date, despite the significant works presented in the literature, there is still a lack of understanding of the kinetics associated with the combustion reactions representing the compositional changes and heat generation rates. Traditionally, in the majority of the kinetic reaction models, it is believed that oil undergoes Low Temperature Oxidation and pyrolysis reactions before it burns, and coke is the main product which is the source of the fuel for High Temperature Oxidation reactions. However, In Situ Combustion Research Group (ISCRG) at the University of Calgary believes that vapor phase combustion is an important unrecognized parameter in most of kinetic models which have been presented in the literature. Even though some recent publications have considered vapor phase combustion in their kinetic models, there are still inaccuracies associated with the results predicted by these kinetic models [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]. To gain a deeper insight into the vapor phase combustion, a unique specially designed experimental study with the ability to capture the vapor phase combustion was conducted in Ebrahim Feizabadi’s M.Sc. thesis [6]. While this study showed valuable results indicating the existence of the vapor phase combustion, it also resulted in some new questions that must be answered to better understand the vapor phase combustion in air injection-based processes [6]. In this new study which will be discussed in detail in the following sections of this thesis, the effects of the experimental apparatus parameters on the kinetics of vapor phase combustion were investigated.