In the Claus process, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are the main precursors for soot particle formation, which reduce the efficiency of the process. Therefore, the formation of PAHs must be minimized. The aim of this work is to study different reaction pathways that may lead to PAH formation through quantum chemical and kinetics calculations. Three pathways were studied in this work, where phenanthrene formation from naphthalene was studied in Pathways 1 and 2, and Pathway 3 explored the development of phenanthrene from naphthalene by H and C2H2 additions. It was found from an ethylene flame simulation that our mechanism corresponds to 61% increase in phenanthrene formation. Furthermore, Claus furnace simulation showed that the conditions used in industries are not suitable for large PAH destruction, and their optimization using detailed reaction mechanism could help in finding suitable conditions for aromatics destruction in the furnace.
Initial studies were conducted using HT-HP filter press and Filter papers as porous media for visual inspection of polymer cake dissolution efficiency. Final conclusions were drawn from the simulated coreflooding studies, wherein the injection and production return permeabilities were investigated on post-fractured and enzyme treated cores .The breaker was mixed with the frac fluid, where as in the second, the breaker treatment was applied once the frac fluid is in place. It is also seen from comparative performance studies that the breaking ability enhances when the breaker is in second phase treatment instead of being mixed with the frac fluid. The simulated core flood runs conducted indicated a filter cake deposition due to frac fluid leak off. leading to reduction of permeability from 95 md to 0.3 md simulating formation damage in most cases. The results illustrated a restoration of up to 95% of the production and injection permeability.
Wettability of shale oil rocks is a sensitive petrophysical factor for EOR from shale oil reservoirs. The recent literature showed that the shale rocks exhibit a mixed-wetting behavior which is composed of organic matter (oil-wet) and inorganic matter (water-wet). Moreover, current studies have found that nanofluids has the potential to increase the oil recovery up to 17 %. However, there is a lack of mechanistic understanding associated with the wettability alteration potential of shale rocks upon modification with nanofluids. Thus, the objective of this study is to experimentally quantify the shale wettability pre and post aging in silica nanofluid. The contact angle measurement is used to quantitatively assess the wettability of shale. Furthermore, the imaging analysis techniques (i.e., SEM and AFM) are utilized to provide insights into micro-scale mechanisms for wettability alteration.
In this paper, we propose a novel viscoelastic model to analyze the polymer rheological behavior in porous media. The main advantage of our model is its ability to capture the polymer mechanical degradation at ultimate shear rates primarily observed near wellbores. Furthermore, the fitting parameters used in the model have been correlated to the rock and polymer properties, significantly reducing the need for expensive and time-consuming coreflooding tests for future polymer screening works. Finally, the proposed model is implemented in the MATLAB Reservoir Simulation Toolbox (MRST) to evaluate polymer flooding at a field scale and quantify additional oil recovery.
Standard models have many limitations when it comes to carbonates due to the presence of complex pore structures at several length scales. A proposed solution is to image the whole core plug sample at a coarse scale then acquire smaller subsets at a finer scale. 3D-printing said enlarged subsets to a diameter of 1.5 inch allows for porosity & permeability experiments which may validate the analytical and simulated petrophysical properties. With a vertical resolution of 25?m, the stereolithography 3D-printer is able to capture fine pore networks using a resin that has good mechanical properties when cured, sufficient for flush-cleaning and poroperm experiments. The input for the 3D-printer is a mesh file known as a STL (STereoLithography) file, generated from processed raw data of micro-CT scans. Once the samples are printed, they are flush-cleaned under high pressure and temperature to remove any excess resin blocking the pore networks then experimented on.
The aim of this research is to study the effect of softening the injected water on the efficiency of a potential synthetic polymer through conducting rheological studies. An ATBS based polymer was selected as a potential synthetic polymer for this study due to its stability under HTHS conditions. The rheological tests were conducted to investigate the effect of different factors on polymer viscosity including polymer concentration, shear rate, calcium and magnesium removal, and temperature. In addition, the obtained rheological data were used as an input to develop a correlation to predict the polymer viscosity at the different conditions
In this work, we demonstrate our approach for the preparation of sulfur-based emulsion at high temperature in an aqueous medium. Emulsion polymerization technique help to control the reaction kinetics and yield better. The vinylic monomeric compounds are polymerized in the presence of emulsifiers Three percent of elemental sulfur copolymerized with monomers for the initial level understanding. Prepared emulsion polymers can be easily processed into thin film at room temperature.
Biotrickling filters (BTFs) are an odour control technology that utilises the action of sulfur oxidising bacteria to treat foul air contaminated with H2S. BTFs are complex systems where an immobilised biofilm is allowed to grow on a supportive solid media, while the foul air flows counter-currently with a stream of trickling liquid. In this work, a mechanistic model is developed, based on first principles where applicable, that describes the interphase mass transfer and biological oxidation kinetics. The model also focuses on spatial discretisation of a BTF bed and describes the competition between sulfur oxidising bacteria (SOB) and aerobic heterotrophs growing within different niches of the bed. The model successfully produced concentration profiles over time and space of all relevant chemical and biological species within the bed. The model was then used to theoretically investigate the effect of design and operating parameters on the bed performance.
In this thesis, zinc/copper metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) were synthesized on a Cu foam substrate to be used as positive pseudocapacitive electrodes for high-performance asymmetric supercapacitors. Comparing the performance of the prepared Zn-Cu MOF precursor Layered Double Hydroxide (LDH) electrode and the oxidized and sulfurized electrodes, the Zn-Cu sulfide manifested the best performance with an areal capacity of 0.313 mA h cm-1 at a scan rate of 20 mV/s and a voltage window of 0.6 V, which is higher than that of the oxide and LDH electrodes (0.147 and 0.131 mA h cm-1, respectively). The Galvanostatic Charge/Discharge (GCD) curves obtained at an areal current density of 1 mA/cm2 showed that the charge/discharge time of the sulfide, oxide, and LDH electrodes were 22.83, 12.03, and 6.57 min, respectively. Stability test conducted for 3000 charge/discharge cycles at 20 mA/cm2 revealed that the Zn-Cu sulfide electrode renders a capacity retention of 85.7%.
In this study, the solar light photocatalytic degradation of ibuprofen (IBU), one of the most detected pharmaceuticals in aquatic environments, was investigated over 5% bismuth doped ceria-titania photocatalyst. The effects of IBU concentration (5-55 mg/L), pH (3-11), and salinity of the reaction medium (0-10,000mg/L) on the removal percentage of IBU were studied. The degradation of Ibuprofen (IBU) was monitored using a UV/Vis Spectrophotometer, and Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (LCMS) was used to assess the removal percentage of IBU. The results indicate a slight decrease in degradation by the photocatalyst in saline water compared to deionized water, while the pH had the greatest effect on the degradation of IBU. Removals of 99.7-100 % were achieved at low pH condition. While the studied ranges of the other parameters showed no impact on the removal%, the UV/Vis results have indicated a slower conversion in saline conditions and low initial concentration of IBU.
