A comparative study of heavy oil oxidation thermal behavior in the presence of Cu-Mn tallates

Abstract

© Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd. Heavy oil in-situ combustion process has many benefits among other thermal enhancing oil recovery methods. However, its application is still a complex task due to the irregular propagation of combustion front in the reservoir and its early breaking down. Recent finding regarding in-situ combustion development have led to use catalysts based on transition metals in order to stabilize and enhance combustion front flow. Transition metals was chosen rather than other types of catalysts because of their practical, feasible and economic impact in a wide range of industrial processes. Current solutions to catalytic in-situ combustion are inconsistent with their application in real fields due the problems associated to the injection of catalysts in the reservoir from one side and to the high cost that can be generated from the use of certain type of catalysts. In this context, we studied the effect of copper and manganese tallates in different metal ratios on the oxidation of heavy oil by applying various physical and physical-chemical methods. As a result, we have obtained accurate results demonstrating the potential effect of Cu-Mn tallates in stabilizing combustion front during high temperature oxidation reactions.