The effect of water on combustion behavior of crude oils

Abstract

The ramped temperature oxidation experiments were performed on heavy and light crude oil samples using the TGA and DSC instruments. The crude oils were mixed with different weight percentages (10%, 20%, and 30%) of water, as a result of which six different water-oil mixtures were prepared. The samples were heated up to 800 °C with three heating rates 20, 25, 30 °C/min. Two reaction regions, particularly the low temperature oxidation (LTO) and high temperature oxidation (HTO), were identified in TGA and DSC results. The LTO region can be divided into two subzones as before and after around 150 °C. In the first subzone, up to around 150 °C, the endothermic distillation process took place. The results showed that light crude oil and its mixtures had lower reaction starting and ending temperatures, and peak temperatures compared to heavy crude oil and its mixtures. As the water amount in the mixtures were increased, the reaction and peak temperatures shifted to lower temperatures. The kinetic analysis was also performed applying the Ozawa-Flynn-Wall (OFW), Kissenger-Akahira-Sunose (KAS), and ASTM kinetic methods. The activation energies and Arrhenius constants based on the TGA and DSC results were calculated accordingly. The light crude oil and its water mixtures had lower activation energy and Arrhenius constants compared to heavy crude oil and its mixtures. As the amount of water in the mixture was increased, the activation energy and Arrhenius constant decreased, which indicated that the presence of water in the crude oil increases its ability to combust more efficiently.