Assessment of the effect of ferromagnetic liquids on oil recovery of bituminous sands

Abstract

In Azerbaijan, in addition to natural oil, there are large reserves of it in the form of bituminous rocks. The largest reserves are concentrated in the Balakhani part of the Kirmaki mountain, which are more than 50 million tons. In order to extract oil from bituminous rocks, various methods are used. Including such methods of extracting oil from bituminous rocks (BR): boiling BR with water without additives and with alkaline type additives; extraction method using various solvents; thermal cracking of BR; flotation method and supercritical fluid extraction. In addition to these, methods of influencing bituminous sands with various physical fields are also used, one of which is the use of ferromagnetic fluids (FMF). The use of alkali reactive reagent with iron nanoparticles is an improvement of the method for extracting heavy oil components from bituminous rocks and an environmentally friendly innovative technology. The study of the influence of the magnetic field with tension to 10 A/m on the process of oil extraction from bituminous rocks before and after the use of ferromagnetic fluid showed an increase in oil recovery by 7–8 % and 8–11 %, respectively. Further increase in the external magnetic field strength with the maximum tight bond of the magnetic moment with ferromagnetic particles of nanometer sizes can lead to the appearance of additional tangent stresses caused by the braking of the particle rotation field, the subsequent increase of the effective viscosity of the colloid solution. A numerical method for determining the threshold value of the magnetic field strength has been proposed to analyze this phenomenon, at which the value of the dynamic viscosity of the magnetic fluid is achieved, which is the limit for oil from the field corresponding to the extraction of oil from bituminous rocks.