화학공학소재연구정보센터
Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Vol.58, No.34, 15666-15680, 2019
Robust Three-Phase Vapor-Liquid-Asphaltene Equilibrium Calculation Algorithm for Isothermal CO2 Flooding Applications
CO2 flooding is an effective enhanced oil recovery process for light oil reservoirs. Asphaltenes can easily precipitate during CO2 flooding, leading to the appearance of three-phase vapor-liquid-asphaltene (VLS) equilibria. A prerequisite for accurately simulating the CO2 flooding process is developing a robust three-phase VLS equilibrium calculation algorithm. In this study, we develop a robust and efficient three-phase VLS equilibrium calculation algorithm with the use of asphaltene precipitation model proposed by Nghiem et al. [Efficient Modelling of Asphaltene Precipitation, SPE, 1993]. To develop this algorithm, a two-phase flash calculation algorithm is first developed to split the mixture into an asphaltene phase and a nonasphaltene phase. Moreover, two different three-phase VLS flash calculation algorithms are developed and incorporated into our three-phase equilibrium calculation algorithm. New initialization approaches for both stability test and flash calculations are proposed. The performance of this three-phase VLS equilibrium calculation algorithm is tested by generating pressure-composition (P-X) diagrams for several reservoir fluids mixed with pure or impure CO2.