Subcontinuum mass transport of condensed hydrocarbons in nanoporous media
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Falk-2015-Subcontinuum mass.pdf
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Author(s)
Falk, Kerstin
Ulm, Franz-Josef
Coasne, Benoit Alain
Pellenq, Roland Jm
Bocquet, Lyderic
Date Issued
April 2015
Journal
Nature Communications
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Citation
Falk, Kerstin, Benoit Coasne, Roland Pellenq, Franz-Josef Ulm, and Lyderic Bocquet. “Subcontinuum Mass Transport of Condensed Hydrocarbons in Nanoporous Media.” Nature Communications 6 (April 22, 2015): 6949. © 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Although hydrocarbon production from unconventional reservoirs, the so-called shale gas, has exploded recently, reliable predictions of resource availability and extraction are missing because conventional tools fail to account for their ultra-low permeability and complexity. Here, we use molecular simulation and statistical mechanics to show that continuum description—Darcy’s law—fails to predict transport in shales nanoporous matrix (kerogen). The non-Darcy behaviour arises from strong adsorption in kerogen and the breakdown of hydrodynamics at the nanoscale, which contradict the assumption of viscous flow. Despite this complexity, all permeances collapse on a master curve with an unexpected dependence on alkane length. We rationalize this non-hydrodynamic behaviour using a molecular description capturing the scaling of permeance with alkane length and density. These results, which stress the need for a change of paradigm from classical descriptions to nanofluidic transport, have implications for shale gas but more generally for transport in nanoporous media.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms7949
