Canada Excellence Research Chair in Materials Engineering for Unconventional Oil Reservoirs

一个霍布森的选择-满足能源需求的可用燃料或大幅减少社会的环境足迹-构成人类在21世纪世纪最大的技术挑战。在接下来的几十年里，阿尔伯塔的油砂将是一个熔炉：一个世界级的石油资源，其开采留下了地表和地下越来越多的环境问题的遗产。目前的开采方法需要投入大量的能源、水资源和二氧化碳排放。在“一切照旧”的心态下，未来的开采面临危险，因为社会/政治参与减弱，市场准入的不确定性增加， 发展使得能够竞争燃料和/或替代运输模式。 为了应对这一挑战，CERC提出了油砂创新和技术的革命 发展，无论是短期的问题和长期的机会。它开始很小，在100个原子的尺度上，中尺度科学开始出现，纳米材料的显着特性出现，但达到整个油砂区域的100公里跨度。虽然处于起步阶段，但中尺度科学在这一应用方面具有巨大的潜力：新的纳米材料能够实现能量转换、材料操纵和远程激活--所有这些都具有前所未有的部署能力。我们将发明和使用这种纳米材料来开发新的平台，并最大限度地减少工艺足迹，例如通过提高蒸汽一致性效率来减少SAGD的CO2和水足迹，控制/包含/监测原位工艺以及尾矿池和采出水的实际快速退役。我们将创造改变游戏规则的过程，将现场重油的巨大化学还原潜力转化为低排放的替代能源载体 （甲烷、氢气、电力）。 该计划不仅是技术性的，而且将通过技术团队建设和管理合作，推进纳米材料定向设计和低成本合成的科学基础。我们将培养一批新的学生，将这些进步带到该领域，并迎来一个创新能源生产的时代。

A Hobson’s choice – meeting energy demand from available fuels or reducing drastically society’s environmental footprint – constitutes humankind’s greatest technical challenge in the 21st century. In the next few decades Alberta’s oil sands will be a crucible: a world-class petroleum resource, whose exploitation has left a legacy of environmental problems on surface and increasingly in the subsurface. Current exploitation methods require large invested energy, water use and CO2 emissions. Future exploitation is imperilled under a “business as usual” mindset, as social/political engagement ebbs, uncertainty in market access grows, and disruptive developments enable competing fuels and/or alternative transportation modes. To address this challenge, this CERC proposes a revolution in oil sands innovation and technology development, both for near-term problems and long-term opportunities. It starts small, at the scale of 100 atoms, where mesoscale science begins and remarkable properties of nanomaterials emerge, but reaches the 100 km span of an entire oil sands region. Though in its infancy, mesoscale science holds tremendous potential for this application: new nanomaterials that enable energy conversion, materials manipulation, and remote activation -- all with unprecedented deployment capabilities. We will invent and use such nanomaterials to develop new platforms and minimize process footprint, e.g. by increasing steam-conformance efficiency to reduce SAGD’s CO2 and water footprints, controlling/containing/monitoring in-situ processes and practical rapid decommissioning of tailing ponds and produced water. We will create game-changing processes that convert the enormous chemical reductive potential of in-situ heavy oil into low emission, alternative energy vectors (methane, hydrogen, electricity). The program will not be merely technical but will, through technology team building and managed collaboration, advance the scientific basis for directed design and low-cost synthesis of nanomaterials. We will train a new breed of students to bring these advances to the field and usher in an era of innovative energy production.