Sharif Digital Repository

Satellite remote sensing products of AOD from MODIS along with appropriate meteorological parameters were used to develop statistical models and estimate ground-level PM10. Most of previous studies obtained meteorological data from synoptic weather stations, with rather sparse spatial distribution, and used it along with 10 km AOD product to develop statistical models, applicable for PM variations in regional scale (resolution of ≥10 km). In the current study, meteorological parameters were simulated with 3 km resolution using WRF model and used along with the rather new 3 km AOD product (launched in 2014). The resulting PM statistical models were assessed for a polluted and largely variable... 

The In-Situ Combustion (ISC) as a thermal EOR process has been studied deeply in heavy oil reservoirs and is a promising method for certain non-fractured sandstones. However, its feasibility in fractured carbonates remained questionable. The aim of the present work was to understand the recovery mechanisms of ISC in fractured models and to evaluate the effect of fractures geometrical properties such as orientation, density, location and networking on the ISC recovery performance. Combustion parameters of a fractured low permeable carbonate heavy oil reservoir in Middle East called KEM; applied to simulation study. Simulator has been validated with KEM combustion tube experimental data and... 

The aim of the present work is to evaluate the effect of fractures geometrical properties such as orientation, density, location, and networking on the conventional fire flooding (CFF) process performance through simulation analysis. Combustion parameters of a fractured low-permeable carbonate heavy oil reservoir in Iran called Kuh-E-Mond (KEM); applied for simulation study and simulator has been validated with KEM combustion tube experimental data. The validated model was modified to study CFF in 3D semi-scaled combustion cells. Simulation results confirmed that CFF is more feasible in the case of densely fractured reservoirs such as those in the Middle East  

Toe to heel air injection has been studied on non-fractured sandstone models and is found to be a promising enhanced oil recovery method for certain heavy oil reservoirs, such as those in Canada, but its applicability on fractured reservoirs, such as those in the Middle East, is not investigated yet. The objective of this article is to evaluate the effect of fractures geometrical parameters, such as fracture density, orientation, and location, on the performance of the process in laboratory scale. Simulation results showed that toe-to-heel air injection is more applicable on highly networked fractured reservoirs, such as those that occur in Persian Gulf coast compared to lower density... 

Acidizing is one of the most effective techniques to remove the formation damage and restore (or even increase) the permeability of the near wellbore region. Although this technique is widely used to resolve the skin problem, it could initiate new damages itself that hinder the fluid flow and decrease the well production, consequently. Acid-oil emulsion and sludge formation are known as two major induced formation damage and the main reasons for the oil well acid treatment failures. Despite its critical effects, no comprehensive study has been addressed this specific type of formation damages in details. In this study, the acid-oil emulsion and asphaltic sludge formation were evaluated... 

The Conventional Fire Flooding (CFF) process application feasibility on fractured carbonated reservoirs remained questionable. In this paper first combustion parameters and reaction kinetics of a naturally fractured low permeability carbonated heavy oil reservoir in Iran called Kuh-E-Mond applied to simulation study. After that, simulator has been validated with Kuh-E-Mond combustion tube experiment. Recovery mechanism in single block matrix is different from one in conventional model since oxygen first flows into the fractures and then diffuses from all sides into the matrix. Combustion of the oil in the fractures produces some water ahead of fracture combustion front which prohibits oxygen... 

Copper-succinate-layered hydroxide (CSLH), a new nanohybrid material, was synthesized as an inorganic-organic nanohybrid, in which organic moiety was intercalated between the layers of a single cation layered material, copper hydroxide nitrate. Microporous scaffold carbon material was obtained by thermal decomposition of the nanohybrid at 500°C under argon atmosphere followed by acid washing process. Furthermore, the heat-treated product of the nanohybrid at 600°C was ultrafine mesoporous metallic copper particles. The results of this study confirmed the great potential of CSLH to produce the carbon material with large surface area (580m2/g) and high pore volume copper powder (2.04cm3/g)  

Undoped and copper doped nanostructured zinc oxides were synthesized by using a series of synthetic layered material, undoped and copper doped zinc hydroxide nitrates at various molar percentages of copper (2-10) within the layers as precursors. The layered materials were heat-treated at 500 °C to produce zinc oxide nanostructures with crystallite sizes in the range of 23-35 nm. Optical studies of the nanostructured copper doped zinc oxides showed the decrease in band gap with increasing content of the doping agent, copper  

A model based on the perturbation theory of fluids was proposed to correlate the experimental data for surface tension of pure hydrocarbons in a wide range of temperature. The results obtained for the pure hydrocarbons were directly used to predict the surface tension for binary hydrocarbon mixtures at various temperatures. In the proposed model, a modified form of the square well potential energy between the molecules of the reference fluid was taken into account while the Lennard-Jones dispersion energy was considered to be dominant amongst the molecules as the perturbed term to the reference part of the model. In general, the proposed model has three adjustable parameters which are chain... 

In this work, the vapour extraction (VAPEX) process is studied experimentally in a rectangular physical model at moderate-high pressure. The solvent was either pure propane or a mixture of propane/ methane with different compositions. The solvent and carrier gas were totally mixed before injection, so that a solvent with the desired composition flowed through the injector during experiments, and the solvent mixture was in thermodynamic equilibrium before injection into VAPEX cell. Effects of pressure and composition of solvent were studied. Results showed that at a fixed pressure, the process is more effective with pure solvent compared to the use of solvent mixtures. The main feature of... 

The vapor extraction (VAPEX) process; a solvent-based enhanced oil recovery process has been found promising for some heavy oil reservoirs. In this work, the VAPEX process is studied using a compositional simulator on a number of single-block and multiple block fractured systems. PVT data of one of an Iranian heavy oil reservoir are used to tune the equation of state. Effects of fracture spacing on the performance of process were studied. It was found that the fracture network enhances the VAPEX process in low-permeability systems by increasing the contact area between solvent and oil contained in the matrix blocks. Also, the fracture network reduced the instabilities in the system pressure... 

A method based on the Genetic Algorithm (GA) was developed to study the phase behavior of multicomponent and multiphase systems. Upon application of the GA to the thermodynamic models which are commonly used to study the VLE, VLLE and LLE phase equilibria, the physically meaningful values for the Binary Interaction Parameters (BIP) of the models were obtained. Using the method proposed in this work the activity coefficients for components at infinite dilution, obtained from the local composition based models, can be accurately predicted comparing to the experimental data available in the literature. In this work, a Global Optimization Procedure (GOP) based on the GA was developed to obtain... 

Displacement experiments of the gas-oil system are performed on long core scale models by varying the petrophysical properties and flowing conditions. Experiments are conducted in situations where capillary, gravity and viscous forces are comparable. From oil production history and picture analysis, the threshold for the stability is determined. The experimental findings are comparable to the results of a gradient percolation theory. The effect of destabilized front velocity on relative permeability and residual saturation is investigated. The relative permeabilities determined by using analytical and numerical approaches indicate that higher displacement velocity leads to a higher gas... 

A depleted naturally fractured gas condensate reservoir with extremely tight matrix permeability in the center of Iran is used for gas storage. Due to the tightness of the matrix, simulation of this process may present a unique challenge in terms of the importance of diffusion process in flow behavior of the injected gas in matrix blocks. This article presents a multimechanistic (Darcian-type flow and Fickian-type flow) mathematical model to investigate the importance of diffusion process as a function of important rock and fluid parameters. The authors' approach consists of the following steps: (a) development of a 1-D governing equations for a single matrix block consists of a gas... 

Gas flooding is a practical secondary scenario for enhanced oil recovery. Channeling and fingering of the injected gas are the major problems facing this technique. These challenges can be mitigated by the injection of gas as foam. However, foam stability influences the overall efficiency of the process, which could be improved by nanoparticles (NPs). This work provides a theoretical and experimental analysis of the NPs wettability effects on foam behavior, in both static and dynamic states. The treated calcite (CaCO3) NPs along with a cationic surfactant (HTAB) were used for this purpose. By comparison of theoretical and experimental data, it was shown that the foam stability in the... 

Rheological behavior of two crude oils and their surfactant-stabilized emulsions with initial droplet sizes ranging from 0.5 to 75 μm were investigated at various temperatures under steady and dynamic shear testing conditions. In order to evaluate the morphology and Stability of emulsions, microscopic analysis was carried out over three months and average diameter and size distribution of dispersed droplets were determined. The water content and surfactant concentration ranged from 10 to 60% vol/vol and 0.1 to 10% wt/vol, respectively. The results indicated that the rheological properties and the physical structure and stability of emulsions were significantly influenced by the water content... 

A new equation of state based on the Statistical Associating Fluid Theory (SAFT) is presented to study the phase behavior of associating and non-associating fluids. In the new equation of state, the hard sphere contribution to compressibility factor of the simplified version of the SAFT (SSAFT) is replaced with that proposed by Ghotbi and Vera. The Ghotbi-Vera SSAFT (GV-SSAFT) was also extended to study the phase behavior of associating and non-associating mixtures. The GV-SSAFT like the SSAFT equation of state has three adjustable segment parameters for non-associating fluids and five parameters for associating fluids. The experimental data of liquid densities and vapor pressures for pure... 

Acidizing is widely used to remove near-wellbore damage and enhance the inflow performance of the reservoir to boost the well oil production rate. However, when the injected acid exposes to reservoir oil, either asphaltic sludge or emulsion forms as acid-induced damages. Therefore, laboratory compatibility tests are required before every acidizing job to determine both the acid sensitivity of oil samples and the optimal dosage of chemical inhibitors that should be used to prevent sludge and emulsion formation. The lack of knowledge to predict the risk of asphaltic sludge and emulsion damages for different oil and acid systems necessitates expensive and time-consuming compatibility tests...