Energy & Fuels, Vol.30, No.5, 3660-3665, 2016
Kinetic Modeling of a Heat Generator for the Fluidization of Paraffin Deposits Using In-line Infrared Spectroscopy with the Development of a Graphical User Interface
Nitrogen-generating systems (NGS) have been used by the oil industry for treatments in flow assurance, because the system consists of a highly exothermic nitrosation reaction that can act as an in situ generator of heat for the fluidization of low-melting-point organic deposit or gas hydrate buildup. In this work, attenuated total reflection/Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR/FTIR) was used to monitor and quantify the components in the NGS reactions and a 24 central composite design of experiment was used to model the total amount of heat released by the system at different times, working as an empirical kinetic modeling. The modeling showed great results for the prediction of the kinetic profile in new conditions, showing an average percentage error of 7.5% when compared to the experimental measurement using ATR/FTIR With the achieved models, a graphical user interface was constructed in MATLAB for the prediction of the kinetic profile of the NGS, with possible applications for the fluidization of paraffin/wax in tanks by the industry.