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Impact of Thermodiffusion on the Initial Vertical Distribution of Species in Hydrocarbon Reservoirs

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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.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge computational facilities provided by the University of Pau and the MCIA. This work has been supported by ESA through the SCCO project. The authors thank Total S.A. for permission to publish this paper. The Spanish teams (Mondragon Unibertsitatea and Universidad Complutense) are thankful to the TERDISOMEZ (FIS2014-58950-C2-1-P and FIS2014-58950-C2-2-P) of MINECO.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire des Fluides Complexes et leurs Réservoirs, UMR-5150 CNRS-TOTAL, Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, Pau, France

    Guillaume Galliero, Henri Bataller, Fabrizio Croccolo & Romain Vermorel

  2. Laboratoire de Chimie-Physique, UMR 8000 CNRS, Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France

    Pierre-Arnaud Artola & Bernard Rousseau

  3. Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Velisa Vesovic

  4. MGEP Mondragon Goi Eskola Politeknikoa, Mechanical and Industrial Manufacturing Department, Mondragon, Spain

    Mounir Bou-Ali

  5. Departamento de Física Aplicada I., Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain

    José M. Ortiz de Zárate

  6. Key Laboratory of Microgravity, Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China

    Shenghua Xu

  7. State Key Laboratory of Enhanced Oil Recovery, CNPC, Beijing, China

    Ke Zhang

  8. TOTAL E.P., Pau, France

    François Montel

Authors
  1. Guillaume Galliero
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  2. Henri Bataller
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  3. Fabrizio Croccolo
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  4. Romain Vermorel
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  5. Pierre-Arnaud Artola
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  6. Bernard Rousseau
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  7. Velisa Vesovic
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  8. Mounir Bou-Ali
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  9. José M. Ortiz de Zárate
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  10. Shenghua Xu
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  11. Ke Zhang
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  12. François Montel
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Correspondence to Guillaume Galliero.

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Galliero, G., Bataller, H., Croccolo, F. et al. Impact of Thermodiffusion on the Initial Vertical Distribution of Species in Hydrocarbon Reservoirs. Microgravity Sci. Technol. 28, 79–86 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12217-015-9465-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12217-015-9465-6

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