Gasification of Athabasca bitumen: hydrogen generation, kinetics, and in situ process design

• Main Author: Kapadia, Punitkumar Ramanlal
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: University of Calgary 2012
• Subjects: Canada; Peace River
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.11575/prism/5061; https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/106062

Bibliography: p. 258-268 : Some pages are in colour. : Alberta, Canada has an immense amount of crude bitumen reserves in Athabasca, Cold Lake and Peace River deposits. Commercially, these reserves are exploited either by surface mining or in situ recovery methods in the form of liquid bitumen. Subsequently, the produced bitumen is upgraded to synthetic crude oil (SCO). SCO constitutes the main feed intake for conventional refineries wherein it is processed further to obtain fuel, petrochemicals, and lubricant products. Even though the current pathway of energy production from crude bitumen reserves is technically successful, commercially proven and economically viable, it requires large energy investments and high emission of pollutants to environment. Hence, there is a need for exploration of alternative energy vectors for production from these reserves. There are sufficient numbers of experimental and pilot scale studies demonstrating the possibility of hydrogen production from bitumen. Hydrogen is a clean fuel, has the highest energy content per unit mass, and is a required feedstock for the chemical and petrochemical industries. Given the extent of Athabasca oil sands reservoirs (over 1.7 trillion barrels); hydrogen generation from these resources would potentially have benefits to Alberta and Canada. The overall objective of the proposed research was to understand and optimize hydrogen generation by in situ gasification from bitumen reservoirs. The methods to enable this research were analysis of experimental pyrolysis, aquathermolysis, combustion data for Athabasca bitumen to obtain a reaction scheme and associated kinetic parameters, matching of combustion tube experiments to evaluate transport parameters, and simulation of field scale gasification recovery processes in Athabasca bitumen reservoir models. The key outcomes of the research were, • Evaluation of hydrogen generating potential from gasification of Athabasca bitumen, • Development of comprehensive reaction scheme to include pyrolysis, aquathermolysis, and combustion mechanisms for gasification of Athabasca bitumen, • Analyse of reaction zones in SAGD operation to provide estimates of acid gas production like hydrogen sulfide, carbon oxides and fuel gases like hydrogen, methane evolved during the SAGD field operation, and • In situ process design for bitumen gasification.