In-Situ Oil Combustion: An Experimental Study Impact of Reactions in the Processes Perpendicular to the Main Gas Flow Direction

In-Situ Oil Combustion: An Experimental Study Impact of Reactions in the Processes Perpendicular to the Main Gas Flow Direction

Kartika Surjosantoso, M.

Rudolph, E.S.J. (mentor)
Khoshnevis Gargar, N. (mentor)
Bruining, J. (mentor)

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Geoscience & Engineering

2012-08-31

The objective of this thesis is to investigate experimentally the impact of gas phase reactions during a simple ISC process especially the role of heat and oxygen presence in the system. Heat plays an important role in both air and nitrogen injection experiments because the injected gas needs to be heated first to the set temperature before flushing the system. At a certain temperature, heat induces endothermic chemical reactions. Therefore it is also necessary to include precise descriptions of chemical reactions describing ISC process. However, the application of ISC method in the field is still an issue since it is hard to control the process. This can be related to the complexity observed in the experimental results. One of the difficulties encountering in this experiment is to acquire an evenly distributed heat within the reservoir. This needs further investigation in future work. In the work presented here the chemical reactions occurring during ISC are studied using a T-shaped reactor tube. The vertical part of the reactor was filled with an oil-saturated sand column; through the horizontal part of the reactor at top of the vertical part either nitrogen or air is flown. The experiments with air allow the study of the chemical reactions, which are thought to occur during ISC, while the experiments with nitrogen injection allow the study of the influence of heat on the reactions occurring during ISC. Thereby the focus is on the processes occurring perpendicular to the main gas (air or nitrogen) flow direction. The main results of the experiments are the effluent gas composition, the temperature profile within the vertical part of the reactor and the characterization of the sand and the liquid collected in the cooling trap after the experiment.

in situ oil combustion
experimental study

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:cd4b8546-d124-4c4c-9ee4-76f1ac5af49f

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2012 Kartika Surjosantoso, M.