Pore-scale imaging of asphaltene-induced pore clogging in carbonate rocks
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Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
We propose an experimental methodology to visualize asphaltene precipitation in the pore space of rocks and assess the reduction in permeability. We perform core flooding experiments integrated with X-ray microtomography (micro-CT). The simultaneous injection of pure heptane and crude oil containing asphaltene induces the precipitation of asphaltene in the pore space. The degree of precipitation is controlled by the measurement of differential pressure across the sample. After precipitation, doped heptane is injected to replace the fluid to enhance the contrast between precipitated asphaltene and doped heptane. The micro-CT images are segmented into three phases: void, precipitated asphaltene, and rock. In the experiment, we observed that the precipitated asphaltene which occupied 39.1% of the pore volume caused a 29-fold reduction in permeability. Furthermore, we analyze the spatial distribution of precipitated asphaltene which showed that the asphaltene tended to clog the larger pores. We also computed the flow field numerically on the images and obtained good agreement between simulated and measured permeability. The distribution of local velocity showed that after precipitation the flow was confined to narrow channels in the pore space. This method can be applied to any type of porous system with precipitation.
Date Issued
2021-01-01
Date Acceptance
2020-07-31
Citation
Fuel, 2021, 283
ISSN
0016-2361
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Journal / Book Title
Fuel
Volume
283
Copyright Statement
© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/).
Subjects
0306 Physical Chemistry (incl. Structural)
0904 Chemical Engineering
0913 Mechanical Engineering
Energy
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 118871
Date Publish Online
2020-09-29