Impact of thermodiffusion on the initial vertical distribution of species in hydrocarbon reservoirs
File(s)thermodiffusion MGST 2015 accepted manuscript.pdf (206.4 KB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
In this work we propose a methodology, based on molecular dynamics simulations, to quantify the influence of segregation and thermodiffusion on the initial state distribution of the fluid species in hydrocarbon reservoirs. This convection-free approach has been applied to a synthetic oil composed of three normal alkanes and to a real acid gas. It has been found that the thermodiffusion effect induced by the geothermal gradient is similar (but opposite in sign) to that due to segregation for both mixtures. In addition, because of the combined effect of thermal expansion and thermodiffusion, it has been observed that the density gradient can be reversed, in the presence of a geothermal gradient. These numerical results emphasize the need of improving our quantification of thermodiffusion in multicomponent mixtures. The SCCO-SJ10 experiments will be a crucial step towards this goal.
Date Issued
2015-11-04
Date Acceptance
2015-10-15
Citation
Microgravity Science and Technology, 2015, 28 (2), pp.79-86
ISSN
1875-0494
Publisher
Springer
Start Page
79
End Page
86
Journal / Book Title
Microgravity Science and Technology
Volume
28
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12217-015-9465-6
Subjects
Thermodiffusion
Segregation
Multicomponent mixtures
Oil and gas
Molecular dynamics
Publication Status
Published