In-situ heavy oil upgrading by high temperature oxidation through air injection

Abstract

Air injection has been widely considered as a technology to enhanced heavy oil recovery on account of the heavy oil upgrading caused by high temperature oxidation during this process. This paper aims at exploring the effects of oxidation thermal processing in a porous media at high temperature from 500 to 540℃ which is the high temperature oxidation range of heavy oil known from TG results, and reaction time from 8 to 16 hours for heavy oil upgrading. It was suggested that the viscosity decreased with the temperature and retention time increased due to getting less ring structure seen from IR Spectrum results. It was observed that the viscosity of heavy oil was reduced 1 to 2 orders of magnitude. Besides, the kinetics of heavy oil upgrading were analysed using five pseudo components including HO (C35+), MO (C15 ~ C35), LO (C5 ~ C14), coke, G (gas products) and successfully predicted the products results with an error of 4.34%, and great correlation to Arrhenius equation. The activation energies obtained are in the range of 44 ~ 215 kJ/mol. This work has great value in revealing the mechanisms of high temperature oxidation heavy oil upgrading and assisting heavy oil production.