Development of new chromatographic approaches for bitumen characterization, solvent detection, and water-cut measurements for production surveillance

严格的环境措施和最近的低商品价格促使油砂行业投资于更节能和新颖的回收技术。溶剂辅助和溶剂基工艺在减轻油砂对环境的负面影响以及减少能源和水的使用方面显示出前景。在与溶剂辅助热采方法相关的苛刻条件下精确测量采出液的组成是极其具有挑战性的。目前，用于溶剂检测的通用且可靠的技术（即，生产的沥青中溶剂的量），含水量检测（即，产出流中水的体积和/或质量）和沥青表征（即，组成和分子量分布）。准确可靠的生产监督过程对于中试阶段和现场规模操作期间溶剂辅助工艺的监测、控制和性能评估至关重要。在该项目中，将开发具有成本效益、快速和可靠的色谱技术，以解决油砂行业在含水量测量、溶剂检测和沥青成分分析方面面临的一些挑战。这些分析技术对于寻找有效的溶剂和注射策略（即，溶剂/蒸汽比）。该项目的成果推进了恶劣条件下的流量测量技术，并为油砂行业提供了实施可靠生产监督过程的必要技术。这些测量技术在油田规模操作中的实施将对油砂工业的经济产生重大影响，从而对加拿大的经济产生重大影响。 本提案中的拟议研究提供了在对阿尔伯塔油砂行业至关重要的领域培养两名博士、一名硕士和四名本科生的机会。

Stringent environmental measures and recent low commodity prices have motivated the oil sands industry to invest in more energy efficient and novel recovery technologies. Solvent-aided and solvent-based processes have shown promise in mitigation of negative environmental impacts of oil sands and reduction of energy and water usage. Precise measurements of the composition of the produced fluids at harsh conditions associated with the solvent-aided thermal recovery methods are extremely challenging. Currently, universal and reliable techniques for solvent detection (i.e., amount of solvent in the produced bitumen), water-cut detection (i.e., volume and/or mass of water in produced stream) and bitumen characterization (i.e., composition and molecular weight distribution) are lacking. An accurate and reliable production surveillance process is essential for monitoring, controlling, and performance evaluation of solvent-aided processes during pilot phase and field scale operations. In this project, cost effective, fast, and reliable chromatographic techniques will be developed to address some of the challenges oil sands industry is facing in measurements of water-cut, solvent detection, and bitumen compositional analysis. These analytical techniques are valuable for finding effective solvents and injection strategies (i.e., solvent/steam ratio). The outcomes of this project advance flow measurement techniques at harsh conditions and provide the oil sands industry with necessary techniques to implement a reliable production surveillance process. Implementation of these measurement techniques in field scale operations will have a great impact on economics of the oil sands industry and thus the economy of Canada. The proposed research in this proposal provides an opportunity to train two PhD, one MSc and four undergraduate students in an area critical to the Alberta oil sands industry.