Adsorption Studies in Athabasca Core Sample: Virgin and Mild Thermal Cracked Residua

Abstract

Reservoir upgrading of bitumen and heavy oils may involve the use of moderate to high temperatures (200–350 °C). In the absence of an efficient catalyst that could help split or transfer hydrogen to cracked heavy molecules, these would deteriorate to form denser asphaltenes with high aromaticity typical from thermal cracking. The tendency of these molecules to flocculate/precipitate inside the porous media and eventually impair oil production needs to be investigated. Perhaps in an opposite direction, the reservoir porous media may also offer a way of selectively retaining the incipiently deteriorated asphaltenes, thus avoiding early media plugging. Attending to these issues, adsorption studies of virgin (VR) and visbroken (VB) vacuum residue with a conversion of 28.5 wt % (28.5% VB) from Athabasca bitumen were carried out using Athabasca reservoir core minerals (well 14-27-88 11W4) spanning depths from 264 to 308 m. Adsorption experiments were performed in toluene solutions of the adsorbates, monitored v...