Sharif Digital Repository

This study concentrates on fabrication of low-cost antifouling membranes by incorporation of alumina in PVC membranes for membrane bioreactor (MBR). PVC based membranes were prepared via phase inversion method at different alumina contents. Pure water flux through the membranes and its antifouling properties in MBR setup at operating pressure of −0.4 bar were studied. The effects of the alumina on the morphology and physical properties of the membranes were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), contact angle, pore size, viscosity, porosity, and mechanical properties. The results showed that the membrane with 3 wt% alumina exhibited excellent... 

Kieselguhr supported copper chloride catalyses the oxidation of thiols to disulfides in the presence of oxygen or air  

Although CO2 injection significantly increases the amount of oil recovered, it can cause asphaltene deposition in oil reservoirs. Asphaltene deposition leads to formation damage, in which treatment is a costly and problematic operation. In this work, impact of asphaltene precipitation and deposition during CO2 injection are investigated for recombined oil both in sandstone and carbonate core samples through dynamic flow experiments. Injection of oil and CO2 was performed simultaneously. Then, pressure drops along the core were recorded continuously to estimate permeability reductions during the experiments. Online viscosity of injected fluid was measured by a designed capillary viscometer.... 

Despite numerous studies, there is a lack of fundamental understanding about the displacement behavior of surfactant-crude oil systems under the influence of different fractures' geometrical properties in five-spot systems. In this work, a series of flow visualization experiments were carried out on one-quarter five spot glass micromodels at various fractures' geometrical properties, such as fracture density and fracture continuity, under oil-wet condition. The influences of injection of Linear Alkyl Benzene Sulfonate and Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate surfactants as well as the effect of fracture geometrical parameters, on macroscopic and microscopic displacement behavior have been investigated.... 

This work is concerned with the experimental investigation of mass transfer, which occurs during diffusion of hydrocarbon solvents in heavy oil based on constant and concentration-dependent diffusion coefficient. Here, a series of free fall diffusion experiments have been conducted in sealed test tubes at fixed temperatures. Pentane, hexane, and octane were used as solvents and were placed on heavy oil in tubes. The diffusivity of heavy oil into solvents was monitored by a digital camera. The image analysis technique was applied to extract concentration profiles in diffusion zones of solvents by means of calibration curves. Fick's second law was used to obtain both constant and... 

The proper understanding of rheological characteristics of CGA based fluids is of crucial importance in determining the performance of the fluid, in order to maintain the most effective fluid properties for safe, efficient, and economical drilling operation. This paper presents a concise investigation on the effect of concentration of the three main components of a novel environmentally friendly lightweight CGA based drilling fluid, i.e., xanthan gum biopolymer, starch, and biosurfactant, to the Herschel-Bulkley rheological model parameters. The three parameters of Herschel-Bulkley model, i.e., yield stress, fluid consistency, and fluid flow index were calculated by fitting the experimental... 

Characterization of viscous fingering in low tension displacements especially for heavy oil surfactant pair in heterogeneous systems is neither straight forward nor well understood. In this work layered porous models containing fractures with different geometrical properties were used and the finger behavior during displacement of LTNS, as a new EOR agent, in heavy oil was quantified. Dynamic propagation of the fingers independent to the type of heterogeneity is well correlated with the dimensionless displacement time in a linearly form. And also, the rate of finger growth is nearly independent to the type of medium heterogeneity. When injection is scheduled through high permeable region in... 

Microscopic visualization of a porous medium can provide valuable information to enhance understanding of pore-scale transport phenomena. In this work, a novel and unique approach is provided to combine experimentally measured pore-size distribution with theoretical statistical analysis to predict longitudinal and transverse dispersion coefficients. The approach presented can be easily extended to predict other fluid-flow parameters through porous media, such as permeability, and capillary pressure. Here, a micromodel is considered as a porous medium. The grains and pores of the micromodel are nonuniform in size, shape, and distribution. The pore-size distribution, as well as pore-length... 

In this work a glass micromodel which its grains and pores are non-uniform in size shape and distribution is considered as porous medium. A two-dimensional random network modė, of micromodel with non-uniform pores has been constructed. The non-uniformity of porous model is achieved by assigning parametric distribution functions to pores throat and pores length, which was measured using image analysis technique. Statically derived expressions have been used for prediction of macroscopic properties of porous model including: dispersion coefficients, permeability-porosity ratio and capillary pressure. The results confirmed that predicted transport properties are in good agreement with the... 

Capillary pressure curves, which have been employed for a long period of time by researchers interested in pore size distribution, are commonly obtained from experimental measurements. The dynamic capillary pressure that influences the flow is affected by many factors including the pore size characteristics and pore scale dynamics. Hence, it is important to investigate the variation of the estimated pore size distribution with capillary number. In this study, a glass type micromodel is considered as the porous media sample. A parametric probability density function is proposed to express the pore size distribution of the porous model, which is also measured using an image analysis technique.... 

Microscopic Visualization of the porous media can provide valuable information to enhance understanding of pore-scale transport phenomena. Here, a micromodel which its grains and pores are non-uniform in size, shape and distribution is considered as porous medium. The pore size distribution as well as pore length distribution was extracted by applying an image analysis technique. A two-dimensional random network model of the micromodel has been constructed which the nonuniformity is considered by assigning measured distribution functions. The random particle method was applied for correlating and predicting dispersion coefficients based on probabilistic approaches. Statistical derivations... 

Two main reservoir mechanisms that impact oil recovery factors are wettability alteration and interfacial tension (IFT) change. In this study, these two key mechanisms are evaluated experimentally for samples from the Asmari (carbonate) oil reservoir utilizing silica nanoparticles in the presence of low-salinity water. The nanofluid, rock formation and crude oil samples were prepared meticulously to ensure meaningful experimental could be conducted over a range of low-salinity conditions. The results show that across the range of salinities studied, the absolute value of zeta potential of nanofluids decreases with increasing total dissolved solids (TDS) in the water treated with silica... 

This study concerns with the microscopic and macroscopic fluid distribution and flow behavior during water alternating solvent (WAS) injection process to heavy oil using micromodel generated from thin section of a real rock which has rarely attended in the available literature. In this study, a one-quarter five-spot glass micromodel was deployed to examine the effect of flow media topology on microscopic displacements as well as macroscopic efficiency of WAS process. The micromodel was initially saturated with the heavy oil, and then the hydrocarbon solvent and water were injected alternately into it. The observations confirmed that WAS injection scheme is an effective method for the... 

In this work, a new type of flooding system, "worm-like micelles", in enhanced heavy oil recovery (EOR) has been introduced. Application of these types of surfactants, because of their intriguing and surprising behaviour, is attractive for EOR studies. Fundamental understanding of the sweep efficiencies as well as displacement mechanisms of this flooding system in heterogeneous systems especially for heavy oils remains a topic of debate in the literature. Worm-like micellar surfactant solutions are made up of highly flexible cylindrical aggregates. Such micellar solutions display high surface activity and high viscoelasticity, making them attractive in practical applications for EOR. In this... 

Relative permeability is used to describe quantitatively simultaneous transport of two or more immiscible phases through a porous medium. Accurate estimates of relative permeability curves depend on the method of estimation and are desired to obtain reliable predictions of flow behavior. To compare the accuracy of relative permeability estimation of implicit and explicit methods, primary drainage experiments of water by a sample oil fluid have been studied. The experiments performed on a horizontal glass type micromodel as a model of porous media sample under different fixed high flow rates condition to negate capillary pressure effects. The relative permeability of oil and water phases is... 

Real porous media even though seemingly homogenous and isotropic are most often nonuniform, and the nonuniformity may affect the macroscopic properties of porous media such as permeability, capillary pressure which is a result of the tortuous and circuitous nature of the flow paths in medium. In this study a glass type micromodel is considered as a porous media sample. A four parametric probability density function are used to express pore throat size, pore body size and pores length distributions which are measured using image analysis technique of porous model. The statistical models parameters are calculated by fitting the statistical model to the measured data of pore throat pore body... 

In this work effect of composition changes of injection gas, CH4 + CO2, on the performance of immiscible WAG injection in light oil, 41 oAPI, which has been rarely attended in the available literature is investigated. Presence of CO2 helps to reduce the MMP of CH4 significantly. Core flood experiments are conducted at reservoir conditions and fixed flow rate of 0.5cc/min on a sandstone sample with the brine concentration of 5000 ppm, and the influence of injection gas composition as well as WAG ratio on oil recovery is investigated. Different mole percents of methane in mixture, 0%, to 100% are examined, and the tests continued to ten alternate cycles with a slug size of 0.1 pore volumes and... 

The major problem in determining the forming limit diagram (FLD) with the Marciniak-Kuczynski (M-K) model is the necessity of an experimental point in order to find the initial inhomogeneity coefficient and calibrate the diagram. The purpose of the present work is to eliminate this requirement. To do this, the usual assumption of geometrical inhomogeneity has been replaced with material inhomogeneity and it has been shown that the sensitivity of the diagram to variations of the inhomogeneity factor is reduced greatly with the new assumption. Using this advantage and collecting enough experimental data for different materials, an empirical law in terms of sheet thickness has been proposed...