This Science News Wire page contains a press release issued by an organization and is provided to you "as is" with little or no review from Science X staff.

Various stearates tested for in-situ combustion process by Kazan Federal University

October 30th, 2019 Adelya Shemelova, Yury Nurmeev

The results were published in Fuel.

Thermal oil extraction gets more and more recognition in scientific circles. However, combustion is a rather complex research problem, and it's one of the focuses of Kazan University's work.

In this project, a porous medium thermo-effect cell (PMTEC) was used. 'Thanks to this technology, we can test and visualize the in-situ combustion process. The cell is made of quartz glass, and it contains a petroleum-bearing layer model. We can conduct screening test for various types of oil with regards to their susceptibility to high-temperature combustion,' explains Mikhail Varfolomeev, Head of EcoOil Research Unit. 'A glass tube is placed in a furnace to maintain heat treatment. Inside the tube is an oil-bearing rock. Air flow then goes through the tube, imitating steam injection into the reservoir, and then oxidation is measured.'

It turned out that the low-temperature combustion (LTC) occurring in the porous medium thermo-effect cell was different from the low-temperature or high-temperature oxidation observed from high-pressure differential scanning calorimetry experiments. In addition, this LTC can propagate in porous media with air flow, which was detected by a newly developed optical fibre technology instead of traditional thermal couples. Furthermore, the effect of copper stearate, iron stearate, nickel stearate, and cobalt stearate as oil-soluble catalysts on the LTC was investigated. Copper stearate showed the best catalytic effect. It significantly shifted onset and peak temperatures into lower temperature from 278 and 287 C to 227 and 237 C, respectively, exhibiting a great potential in catalyzing crude oils combustion in ISC process. The catalytic effect of these four catalysts is in order of efficiency: copper > iron > cobalt > nickel.

More information:
Chengdong Yuan et al. Low-temperature combustion behavior of crude oils in porous media under air flow condition for in-situ combustion (ISC) process, Fuel (2019). DOI: 10.1016/j.fuel.2019.116293

Provided by Kazan Federal University

Citation: Various stearates tested for in-situ combustion process by Kazan Federal University (2019, October 30) retrieved 18 September 2025 from https://sciencex.com/wire-news/333880829/various-stearates-tested-for-in-situ-combustion-process-by-kazan.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.