Sharif Digital Repository

In this communication, a hybrid model based on Least Square Support Vector Machine (LSSVM) was constructed to predict CO2 corrosion rate. The input parameters of the model are temperature, CO2 partial pressure, flow velocity and pH. The data used for training and testing of the developed model are 612 and 109 data, respectively. In order to benefit LSSVM from Kernel learning, we compared three kernel functions to select the most efficient one. Furthermore, Coupled Simulated Annealing (CSA) optimization technique was adapted to choose the best optimal values of the model parameters. The results elucidate that Gaussian Kernel functions is the desired function which can afford high accuracy for... 

In this paper, the impact of three parameters including nanoparticles geometry, particles aggregation and borehole inclination on induced formation damage from water based drilling fluids were investigated by means of experimental studies. Accordingly, we designed a dynamic filtration setup capable to rotate and change well inclination. Nano-based drilling fluids consisting of spherical, cubical and tubular shapes nanoparticles as fluid loss additives were used. Mud cake quality, core permeability impairment and degree of formation damage at various well inclinations were examined. The cluster structure of aggregated particles were determined using fractal theory and applying dynamic light... 

High molecular weight polyacrylamide (PAM) nanoparticle dispersions are products with wide application possibilities, the most important of which is in petroleum industry such as drilling fluid and flooding agent in enhanced oil recovery. For that aim, it is necessary to achieve complete control of the final dispersion and polymer properties during the synthesis step. In this work, PAMs were synthesized by inverse emulsion polymerization of aqueous acrylamide solution in cyclohexane in the presence of emulsifier mixture of Span 20 and Span 80. We present a comprehensive study of the effects of variation of all important reaction conditions (agitation rate, reaction time and temperature,... 

Asphaltene precipitation is a major assurance problem posing significant technical and economic loss on petroleum industry. To tackle this issue, various treatments have been proposed and applied by industry. Amongst, inhibiting or retarding the asphaltene precipitation has been understood as the most efficient approach. In this regard, blending crude oil with chemical additives could appreciably heighten its stability. Surfactants, owing to amphiphilic nature, could keep asphaltene dissolved in crude oil by precluding self-tendency of those particles to making agglomerates. Despite importance of this subject, there is still lack of sufficient experimental data to evaluate effectiveness of... 

Application of the fiber contained fluids has been extensively increased in many industries. In the petroleum industry, fibrous fluids are utilized for different applications. For instance, they have been applied in drilling operations for hole cleaning and cutting removal. In this article, the results of the studies performed on the application of Hydrated Basil Seeds (HBS) as the herbal eco-friendly fiber on hole cleaning and filtration control were presented. In order to investigate the application of HBS on hole cleaning, Polyacrylamide (PA) was added to the pure water to provide the base fluid and HBS at different concentrations were suspended in the base fluid and the effect of HBS on... 

Produced water (PW), water extracted along with oil, can cause important environmental challenges due to its high volume and salinity and is considered a key factor in the economic exploitation of oil fields. Therefore, making use of a cost-effective integrated system of wastewater treatment is a fundamental requirement in oil and gas industries. In this paper, the integrated PW treatment system is presented using superstructure-based mathematical optimisation methodology which is aimed at minimising the total annual cost. Two distinct scenarios of injection and reuse in industrial scale are considered to propose an efficient and optimal integrated system. The results show that, despite the... 

A new polymer gel nanocomposite is fabricated for excess water production control (water shut off) in petroleum reservoirs and its rheological behavior is evaluated in the presence of sea water and formation water at the temperature of 100 °C. It is shown that at a high salinity without using SiO2 nanoparticles, the elastic modulus of synthesized polymer gel in the presence of sea water and formation water are 12.5 Pa and 9.8 Pa respectively. However by incorporation of SiO2 nanoparticles in the polymer gel matrix, the elastic modulus of synthesized polymer gel in the presence of sea water and formation water can be improved to 13.56 Pa and 11.57 Pa respectively, which is quite interesting... 

A new polymer gel nanocomposite is fabricated for excess water production control (water shut off) in petroleum reservoirs and its rheological behavior is evaluated in the presence of sea water and formation water at the temperature of 100 °C. It is shown that at a high salinity without using SiO2 nanoparticles, the elastic modulus of synthesized polymer gel in the presence of sea water and formation water are 12.5 Pa and 9.8 Pa respectively. However by incorporation of SiO2 nanoparticles in the polymer gel matrix, the elastic modulus of synthesized polymer gel in the presence of sea water and formation water can be improved to 13.56 Pa and 11.57 Pa respectively, which is quite interesting... 

Using hydrophobic surfaces is one of the efficient methods to preserve energy in fluid transfer systems. However, the studies have been concentrated on Newtonian fluids despite the wide applications of non-Newtonian fluids in daily life and many industries such as the biological, foodstuff, chemical, petroleum, cosmetic, and lab on a chip fields. In this study, we consider power-law fluids as a typical example of non-Newtonian fluids and investigate the effect of hydrophobic microgrooves on the pressure drop in channels by utilizing the phase field method. We demonstrate that the optimum size of the rectangular microgrooves in which the maximum pressure drop reduction (PDR) happens for both... 

Using network analysis, we investigate if an industry's complex and integrated knowledge base leads to a higher spatial concentration (or dispersal)of innovative activities. This is important because the extant literature provides competing claims about how knowledge base complexity impacts on the spatial distribution of industrial innovation. To help empirically resolve this issue, we draw on longitudinal data (1970–2010)on the upstream petroleum industry and build indexes of entropy and complexity to render knowledge base dynamics, assess the spatial concentration of innovation, and study industry structural transformations. We first find a correlation – once a crucial distinction between... 

In this study, biodiesel (FAME) was prepared using a novel heterogeneous catalyst of phosphomolybdic acid (H3PMo12O40, HPMo)/support graphene oxide (GO). The characterization of the catalyst was evaluated by SEM, EDX, Map analysis, TEM, FT-IR, and Raman analyses. The production of biodiesel from waste cooking oil (WCO) was carried out by the electrolysis method. The process of the trans-esterification reaction was optimized by applying the response surface methodology (RSM) based on the central composite design (CCD) approach. The effects of four independent variables of methanol to oil molar ratio (6–12 mol:mol), catalyst weight (0.5–1.5 wt%), time (8–24 h), and voltage (30–70 V) were... 

One of the key open questions in the area of low or controlled salinity water flooding (LSWF or CSWF) is how the observed oil recovery at macro-scale (e.g. Darcy or core-scale) can the explained and what underlying microscopic mechanisms drive it. Thus far, the micromodel investigation of LSWF has been limited to sandstones, remaining challenging to apply to carbonates. In this paper we aim to i) extend the capability to fabricate a novel calcite micromodel using Iceland spar calcite crystal, ii) investigate the pore-scale mechanisms leading to oil recovery from carbonates. A target crude oil-brine-rock (COBR) system was first selected. To screen potential brines which can produce... 

The petroleum industry suffers from reservoir souring phenomena, which has negative impacts on production facilities, health, and environment. Injection of incompatible water into the reservoir (waterflooding), which is considered as an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method, is one of the most common causes of reservoir souring. In general, injected brine, especially seawater, contains high amounts of sulfate ion (SO42−). A high concentration of sulfate in the presence of sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) leads to the microbial reservoir souring. During this phenomenon, sulfide, specifically hydrogen sulfide gas (H2S) appears in the producing fluid of the reservoir. In this paper, a coupled... 

Capacitance-Resistive Model (CRM), as a fast yet efficient proxy model, suffers from some limitations in modeling relatively complex reservoirs. Some current improvements on this proxy made it a more powerful simulator with updating parameters over time. However, the model's intrinsic uncertainty arisen from simplifying fluid-flow modeling by some limited number of constant parameters is not addressed yet. In this study, this structural limitation of CRM has been addressed by introducing a time-correlated model error, including stochastic and non-stochastic parameters, embedded into this proxy's formulation. The error term's non-stochastic parameters have been tuned to be used in forecasting... 

Energy Return on Investment (EROI) is an indicator of how efficient is an energy supply system. In the present study, the conventional approach of EROI assessment is extended to include the equivalent energy investment needed for offsetting the life cycle environmental impacts. Moreover, the issue of allocation of the invested energy among different by-products is addressed. The EROI of multiple products has been specified using different benchmarks of price, energy content, exergy content, and exergy costs. The application of the concept is demonstrated through a case study of an Iranian oil production unit. The overall conventional and environmentally-extended EROI values of the produced... 

Petroleum industry is moving toward enhancing oil recovery methods, especially water-based methods, including low salinity and smart water flooding which water with an optimized composition is injected into the reservoir for improving oil recovery. Injection of water into the target formation is also a common operation in geothermal energy production. As the water is being injected into the reservoir, pressure and temperature change along the well column and cause scale formation. Mineral scale precipitation and deposition is a common problem for water injection wells which reduces the effective radius of the wellbore and affects the injection efficiency. In this paper, modeling scale... 

Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods are mostly based on different phenomena taking place at the interfaces between fluid–fluid and rock–fluid phases. Over the last decade, carbonated water injection (CWI) has been considered as one of the multi-objective EOR techniques to store CO2 in the hydrocarbon bearing formations as well as improving oil recovery efficiency. During CWI process, as the reservoir pressure declines, the dissolved CO2 in the oil phase evolves and gas nucleation phenomenon would occur. As a result, it can lead to oil saturation restoration and subsequently, oil displacement due to the hysteresis effect. At this condition, CO2 would act as in-situ dissolved gas into the oil... 

Kaolin clay material was loaded with potassium carbonate by impregnation method as a novel, effective, and economically heterogeneous catalyst for biodiesel production of sunflower oil via the transesterification reaction. The structural and chemical properties of the produced catalysts were characterized through several analyses including the X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller specific surface area. These revealed the best catalyst for the investigated reaction among different ones prepared based upon various impregnation extent of the potassium carbonate. The influence of this parameter was examined through a... 

CaO derived from calcined eggshell was doped with Na–K by wet impregnation method and the effect of different Na/K molar ratios was investigated on biodiesel production from canola oil. The catalysts were characterized by X-ray Powder Diffraction (XRD), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX), and Thermogravimetric (TGA) analyses. FAME yields were determined by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). The Na–K/CaO catalyst with Na/K molar ratio of 1 showed the highest FAME yield of 97.6% at optimum reaction conditions. Structural investigation of materials revealed that FAME yield was proportional to the number of basic sites on... 

Capacitance-Resistive Model (CRM), as a fast yet efficient proxy model, suffers from some limitations in modeling relatively complex reservoirs. Some current improvements on this proxy made it a more powerful simulator with updating parameters over time. However, the model's intrinsic uncertainty arisen from simplifying fluid-flow modeling by some limited number of constant parameters is not addressed yet. In this study, this structural limitation of CRM has been addressed by introducing a time-correlated model error, including stochastic and non-stochastic parameters, embedded into this proxy's formulation. The error term's non-stochastic parameters have been tuned to be used in forecasting...