Energy & Fuels, Vol.25, No.12, 5647-5659, 2011
Modeling Permeability Impairment in Porous Media due to Asphaltene Deposition under Dynamic Conditions
An investigation into the impairment of permeability in porous media as a result of the deposition of asphaltene particulates in a flowing stream is presented. By incorporating kinetics of asphaltene deposition under dynamic conditions into the deep-bed filtration (DBF) theory, we have developed a new asphaltene deposition and impairment model, which has only three tuning parameters. The parameters, characterizing the key aspects of the deposition process and porous-media hydraulics, are the stabilized filtration coefficient lambda(0), the filtration time constant tau, and the exponent n, relating porosity and permeability. The resulting models are tested against a large number of experimental data sets, representing common porous media and particulate streams. The validation exercise indicates that our dynamic-filtration model is capable of rationalizing about 82% of the reference data sets within 7%.