Developing effective chemical solutions for treating emulsions and fouling issues in oil sands production and the associated interfacial interaction mechanisms

该项目主要关注加拿大和全球石油工业面临的一个具有挑战性的问题：乳剂的不稳定，解决石油生产中的结垢问题以及相关的界面相互作用机制，特别是在加拿大油砂生产中。加拿大拥有世界第三大石油储量。蒸汽辅助重力排水（SAGD）等露天开采和就地开采技术已被石油工业广泛应用于沥青开采。温水和高压蒸汽分别用于露天开采和SAGD作业，以从油砂矿床中提取沥青。在这些水/蒸汽辅助作业中，油包水、油包水甚至更复杂的乳液会形成。在不同的设施上都不希望出现稳定的乳剂和结垢现象，这给石油生产带来了严重的技术挑战，并大大增加了运营成本。在本研究中，我们建议表征油砂开采中露天开采和SAGD作业环境条件下的油水界面特性，评估所选破乳剂（EB）和反乳剂（REB）的破乳和油水分离性能，评估抗污剂对缓解结垢现象的影响。并进一步阐明了乳状液稳定和不稳定以及结垢/防污现象的相互作用机制。我们计划在发现的基本相互作用原理的基础上开发更有效的化学溶液。预计该研究将为石油工业解决具有挑战性的乳化液和结垢问题提供有效的解决方案（例如，有效的化学试剂产品，新颖的破乳或防污技术）。分子间和表面相互作用的基本机制将有助于行业赞助商和油砂行业进一步开发更有效和经济的方法来去除相关石油生产过程中不需要的乳剂，消除相关的挑战性问题（例如结垢）并降低运营成本。

The proposed project focuses on a challenging issue confronting the Canadian and global petroleum industry: destabilization of emulsions, addressing fouling issues and the associated interfacial interaction mechanisms in oil production, particularly in the Canadian oil sands production. Canada has the third largest oil reserves in the world. Surface mining and In situ extraction techniques such as steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) have been widely used by oil industry for bitumen extraction. Warm water and high pressure steam are used in surface mining and SAGD operations, respectively, to extract the bitumen from the oil sands deposits. Water-in-oil, oil-in-water or even more complex emulsions are formed in these water/steam-assisted operations. The stable emulsions and fouling phenomena on different facilities are highly undesired which cause serious technical challenges and significantly increase the operating cost in oil production. In this research, we propose to characterize the oil/water interfacial properties under the environmental conditions of surface mining and SAGD operations in oil sands production, evaluate the demulsification and oil/water separation performance of selected emulsion breakers (EB) and reverse emulsion breakers (REB), assess the effects of antifoulants on mitigation of fouling phenomena, and further elucidate the interaction mechanisms that contribute to the stabilization and destabilization of emulsions and fouling/antifouling phenomena. We plan to develop more effective chemical solutions based on the fundamental interaction principles discovered. It is expected that the proposed research will provide effective solutions (e.g., effective chemical reagent products, novel demulsification or antifouling technologies) to the oil industry on the challenging emulsion and fouling issues. The fundamental intermolecular and surface interaction mechanisms to be elucidated will help the industry sponsor and oil sands industry further develop more effective and economical approaches to remove the undesired emulsions in related oil production processes, eliminating the associated challenging problems (e.g., fouling) and lowering the operating cost.