Kinetic Study on Heavy Oil Oxidation by Copper Tallates

Abstract

Copyright © 2019 American Chemical Society. The process of in situ combustion is generally accepted as an important thermal method for enhancing heavy oil recovery. In the history of in situ combustion, the focus has always been on stabilizing the combustion front which is viewed as the key to its successful application. For this reason, most studies have proposed the use of transition metals as a catalytic base in order to maintain and promote the combustion front breakthrough. The aim of our work was to broaden current knowledge of using transition metals in heavy oil oxidation processes. For this reason, we performed differential scanning calorimetric experiments to study the effect of copper tallates on the heavy oil oxidation process. As a result, copper tallates enhanced both the low-temperature oxidation region and high-temperature oxidation region by decreasing their energies of activation and hence increasing the reaction rate.