Various stearates tested for in-situ combustion process by Kazan Federal University

The results were published in Fuel.

Thermal oil extraction gets more and more recognition in scientific circles. However, combustion is a rather complex research problem, and it's one of the focuses of Kazan University's work.

In this project, a porous medium thermo-effect cell (PMTEC) was used. 'Thanks to this technology, we can test and visualize the in-situ combustion process. The cell is made of quartz glass, and it contains a petroleum-bearing layer model. We can conduct screening test for various types of oil with regards to their susceptibility to high-temperature combustion,' explains Mikhail Varfolomeev, Head of EcoOil Research Unit. 'A glass tube is placed in a furnace to maintain heat treatment. Inside the tube is an oil-bearing rock. Air flow then goes through the tube, imitating steam injection into the reservoir, and then oxidation is measured.'

It turned out that the low-temperature combustion (LTC) occurring in the porous medium thermo-effect cell was different from the low-temperature or high-temperature oxidation observed from high-pressure differential scanning calorimetry experiments. In addition, this LTC can propagate in porous media with air flow, which was detected by a newly developed optical fibre technology instead of traditional thermal couples. Furthermore, the effect of copper stearate, iron stearate, nickel stearate, and cobalt stearate as oil-soluble catalysts on the LTC was investigated. Copper stearate showed the best catalytic effect. It significantly shifted onset and peak temperatures into lower temperature from 278 and 287 ?C to 227 and 237 ?C, respectively, exhibiting a great potential in catalyzing crude oils combustion in ISC process. The catalytic effect of these four catalysts is in order of efficiency: copper > iron > cobalt > nickel.

Note: This publication was made available online in October 2019 and is scheduled to be released in print in January 2020.

Low-temperature combustion behavior of crude oils in porous media under air flow condition for in-situ combustion (ISC) process

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2019.116293

Source text: Adelya Shemelova

Translation: Yury Nurmeev