Enabling Technology Development for Hydrocarbon Resource Production, Transport and Refining

开发碳氢化合物生产、运输和提炼的有利技术是一个广泛的话题。这项提议和我们的NSERC-RG资助的更广泛的研究的重点是孵化新的想法和概念，这些想法和概念在主要由化学和机械工程师使用的工艺设计和工艺模拟软件中得到应用。我们的目标是提供关键输入或提供计算工具本身，允许在以前无法执行计算的情况下执行计算，并改进目前容易失败的计算方法。所追求的一些项目是纯粹的数学项目，其他项目是纯粹的实验项目，其他项目仍然是两者的组合。我们的目标应用涉及重油和沥青的生产、运输和提炼--这是加拿大和全世界的战略能源资源--但我们观察到，所获得的结果广泛适用。根据这一标准资助的项目，如果成功和适当，还将在NSERC石油热力学工业研究教席研究计划中进行阐述，该计划在碳氢化合物能源部门具有特定的任务。我们最新的相关成功是Vasek Lastovka(PhD 2012)和Nafiseh Dadgostar(PhD 2013)的工作，他们开发了一个广义相似概念，首次能够以同样简单和精确的方式集成预测碳氢化合物和具有已知组成或包含不明确组成的混合物的固体、液体和理想气体的恒压热容。由此产生的关联已转移到工业中，并已包含在用于化学过程设计和开发的最新版本的化学过程模拟器中。虽然这种方法以重油和沥青应用为主导应用，但它也被生物燃料、产品/材料设计和制药界采用。在这项提案中，我们预计将同样成功的两个主题：相行为的发展和基于金和二氧化硅纳米颗粒网络行为的纳米结构流体的流变模型的发展，不同的有机配体连接到这些纳米颗粒上。计算和测量的IR和拉曼光谱，其中区分了分子间和分子内的影响，将用于识别与剪切流变学测量相关的颗粒间(配体间)缔合的性质和强度。由耗尽、絮凝和其他纳米现象产生的相图将使用配备声学阵列遥测的定制观察池进行探索。虽然我们的重点是阐明碳氢化合物能源领域的这种现象，但纳米流体分散体是一个新兴的领域。初步结果及其影响预计将出现在不同的行业，以及液体饲料、中间体或产品可能包括纳米颗粒的应用中。例子包括热传导液、磁共振成像中的造影剂。碳氢化合物资源行业是对加拿大具有战略重要性的行业，在该行业，原油、沥青及其部分加工产品和开采油砂作业的废水都包括纳米结构或纳米颗粒成分，预计稍后将出现。

Development of enabling technologies for hydrocarbon production, transport and refining is a broad topic. The focus of this proposal and our NSERC-RG funded research more broadly is the incubation of novel ideas and concepts that find application in process design and process simulation software used primarily by chemical and mechanical engineers. Our goals are to provide key inputs for or to provide computational tools themselves that permit calculations to be performed where it has not been possible to perform them previously, and to improve upon current calculation methods which are prone to failure. Some of the projects pursued are purely mathematical, others are purely experimental, others still are a combination of the two. Our targeted applications concern the production, transport and refining of heavy oils and bitumen - strategic energy resources for Canada and the world in general - but we have observed that the results obtained are broadly applicable. The projects funded under this rubric, if successful and appropriate, are also elaborated within the NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Petroleum Thermodynamics research program that has a specific mandate within the hydrocarbon energy sector. Our most recent relevant success is the work of Vasek Lastovka (PhD 2012) and Nafiseh Dadgostar (PhD 2013) developed a generalized similarity concept that permitted for the first time the integrated prediction of isobaric heat capacities for solids, liquids and ideal gases for hydrocarbon based compounds and mixtures with compositions known on a molecular basis or comprising ill-defined constituents, with equal ease and precision. The resulting correlations have been transferred to industry, and have been included in recent versions of chemical process simulators used for chemical process design and development. While the approach targeted heavy oil and bitumen applications as a lead application, it has also been adopted by the bio-fuels, product/materials design and pharmaceutics communities. Two topics, that we expect to be equally successful, are elaborated in this proposal: the development of phase behaviour and, rheological models, for nano structured fluids based on the behaviour of networks of gold and silica based nanoparticles to which diverse organic ligands are attached. Computed and measured IR and RAMAN spectra where inter and intra molecular effects are discriminated, will be used to identify the nature and strength of inter particle (inter ligand) association, in relation to shear rheology measurements. Phase diagrams resulting from depletion flocculation and other nanoscopic phenomena will be explored using a custom view cell equipped with acoustic acoustic array telemetry. While our focus is the elucidation of such phenomena in hydrocarbon energy sector, nanofluidic dispersions comprise an emerging area. The initial results and their impacts are expected to arise in diverse industries and for applications where liquid feeds intermediates or products may include nano-particulates. Examples range from heat transfer fluids, contrast agents in magnetic resonance imaging. Applications within the hydrocarbon resource industry, an industry of strategic importance to Canada, where crude oils, bitumen, their partially processed products, and waste water from mined oilsands operations all include nanostructured or nano-particulate constituents are expected to arise later.