Activated desorption at heterogeneous interfaces and long-time kinetics of hydrocarbon recovery from nanoporous media
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Activated desorption.pdf
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Author(s)
Lee, Thomas
Bocquet, Lyderic Benjamin
Coasne, Benoit Alain
Date Issued
June 2016
Journal
Nature Communications
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Citation
Lee, Thomas; Bocquet, Lydéric and Coasne, Benoit. “Activated Desorption at Heterogeneous Interfaces and Long-Time Kinetics of Hydrocarbon Recovery from Nanoporous Media.” Nature Communications 7 (June 2016): 11890. © 2016 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Hydrocarbon recovery from unconventional reservoirs (shale gas) is debated due to its environmental impact and uncertainties on its predictability. But a lack of scientific knowledge impedes the proposal of reliable alternatives. The requirement of hydrofracking, fast recovery decay and ultra-low permeability—inherent to their nanoporosity—are specificities of these reservoirs, which challenge existing frameworks. Here we use molecular simulation and statistical models to show that recovery is hampered by interfacial effects at the wet kerogen surface. Recovery is shown to be thermally activated with an energy barrier modelled from the interface wetting properties. We build a statistical model of the recovery kinetics with a two-regime decline that is consistent with published data: a short time decay, consistent with Darcy description, followed by a fast algebraic decay resulting from increasingly unreachable energy barriers. Replacing water by CO₂ or propane eliminates the barriers, therefore raising hopes for clean/efficient recovery.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11890
