Author
Listed:
- Cano-Londono, Natalia A.
- Médina, Oscar E.
- Mozo, Ivan
- Céspedes, Santiago
- Franco, Camilo A.
- Cortés, Farid B.
Abstract
The growing energy demand has prompted the research community to seek more efficient and sustainable resource extraction methods, particularly in the case of crude oil. Investigating the potential of nanotechnology to enhance crude-oil recovery from extra-heavy and heavy crude-oil reserves is crucial for optimizing resource utilization, improving economic viability, minimizing environmental impacts, driving technological advancement, ensuring energy security, and meeting market demands. In this study, we investigated the implementation of exergy analysis (ExA) on nanotechnology in oil-recovery processes, which has not previously been explored. This involved a life-cycle assessment (LCA) to evaluate the environmental impacts and to complement the ExA in order to optimize operations. To environmentally and thermodynamically analyze the extraction process of extra-heavy crude oil, four scenarios were evaluated: i) steam injection at 0.5 quality; ii) steam injection at 1.0 quality; iii) steam injection at 0.5 quality with 500 mg L−1 of nanoparticles; and iv) steam injection at 1.0 quality with 500 mg L−1 of nanoparticles. The nanofluids used (AlNi1 and AlNi1Pd1) consisted of 500 mg L−1 of alumina (Al2O3) doped with a 1.0 % mass fraction of nickel (Ni) (i.e., AlNi1), and the same amount of alumina doped with a 1.0 % mass fraction of Ni and palladium (Pd) (i.e., AlNi1Pd1). Both nanofluids were supplemented with 1000 mg L−1 of Tween 80. The experiments were conducted in a laboratory and numerical simulation was used to upscale the different scenarios. Considering the equilibrium K-values model, a multiphase/multicomponent flow model coupled with an energy transport equation was utilized. Nanocatalyst transport, as per the experimental data, involved non-equilibrium transference between the liquid phases and the rock surface. The laboratory data were used to calibrate the model, which was then scaled up to reservoir conditions to estimate the oil recovery obtained from deploying in-situ upgrading processes at the field scale. Exergy calculations were performed on the involved flows and porous media in order to assess the crude-oil quality throughout the process. An LCA was implemented to evaluate the reduction in environmental impact achieved by using steam injection at X = 1.0 quality, with and without nanoparticles. The results of the ExA showed that using nanoparticles allowed crude oil with a higher energy quality to be obtained. Furthermore, the ExA showed that the increase in steam quality had a more significant effect on the exergy destroyed in the process than the use of nanomaterials, demonstrating the good performance of the proposed technology. Environmental analyses showed that marine ecotoxicity, urban land occupation, particulate matter formation, and global warming potential were the most-impacted categories, significantly contributing to total environmental impacts, after the fossil depletion impact category for all scenarios. In conclusion, using bimetallic nanoparticles in crude-oil extraction produces a better product with better energy and environmental performance.
Suggested Citation
Cano-Londono, Natalia A. & Médina, Oscar E. & Mozo, Ivan & Céspedes, Santiago & Franco, Camilo A. & Cortés, Farid B., 2024.
"Viability of the steam-based extraction of extra-heavy crude oil using nanoparticles: Exergy and life-cycle assessment,"
Energy, Elsevier, vol. 304(C).
Handle:
RePEc:eee:energy:v:304:y:2024:i:c:s036054422401702x
DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2024.131929
Download full text from publisher
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:304:y:2024:i:c:s036054422401702x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.