Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, Vol.92, No.3, 563-572, 2014
PREDICTION OF SOLUBILITY OF CH4, C2H6, CO2, N-2 AND CO IN BITUMEN
An accurate model to calculate the solubility of light hydrocarbons (methane, CH4 and ethane, C2H6) and non-hydrocarbon gases (carbon dioxide, CO2, nitrogen, N-2 and carbon monoxide, CO) in bitumen is required for the optimal design of bitumen and heavy oil recovery processes and transportation. In this work, we used the Krichevsky-Ilinskaya equation to predict the solubility of light solvents (CH4, C2H6, CO2, N-2 and CO) in bitumen from five reservoirs in Alberta, Canada. The Peng-Robinson (PR) equation of state (EoS) is used to treat the gas phase. The proposed model is then verified using available experimental solubility data of light solvents in bitumen, and good agreement is observed. The experimental data cover wide ranges of pressures and temperatures. The results show that the proposed model represents the available solubility data of light hydrocarbons (CH4 and C2H6) and non-hydrocarbon solvents (CO2, N-2 and CO) in bitumen with absolute average relative deviations of <4.2% and 5.4%, respectively. These results can be applied to heavy oil and bitumen recovery processes.