An experimental approach for measuring carbon dioxide diffusion coefficient in water and oil under supercritical conditions

Several direct or indirect approaches have been proposed to measure diffusion coefficient of gases into liquids.The main complexity of indirect techniques such as pressure decay method is interpreting early pressure-time data which strongly affected by incubation period effect or convective instability.In the current approach,accurate apparatus and precise experimental setup including a high pressure and temperature PVT cell,a high precision Sanchez pump,heating and recording sub-system are implemented and a novel data analysis procedure is applied to modify pressure decay method.The effect of incubation period is reduced remarkably and diffusion coefficient of carbon dioxide in water in wide range of pressures and temperatures is determined and the effects of temperature,pressure and carbon dioxide phase alteration from gas to supercritical are investigated and the value of uncertainty is estimated.Furthermore,diffusion coefficient of CO_(2) and methane in an oil sample from one of the Iranian southwest oil formations is determined precisely using the experimental approach while no incubation period is detected.The results showed that incubation period duration decreases with increasing diffusion coefficient.Additionally,when CO_(2) state is gas,rate of increasing diffusion coefficient with pressure is decreased with temperature and when CO_(2) state is supercritical,the rate of increasing diffusion coefficient with pressure is decreased significantly.

Experimental and Numerical Studies on the Diffusion of CO2 from Oil to Water

Injecting CO2 into oil reservoirs can improve the oil recovery,meanwhile achieve CO2 storage.The diffusion of CO2 in oil-water systems has a substantial impact on this process.The interface significantly affects the mass transfer of CO2 between oil and water phase.In this paper,based on the determination of the CO2 diffusion coefficient in oil or water phases,the diffusion processes of CO2 from oil to water were experimentally investigated under different pressures.A numerical method was proposed to calculate the pressure drop and the diffusion coefficient in the process of CO2 diffusion from oil to water.The experimental results indicated that the CO2 diffusion coefficient in oil or water increased rapidly with pressure up to the critical pressure of CO2 and gradually slowed down thereafter.The CO2 diffusion from oil to water was much slower than that in oil or water.The diffusion coefficient of CO2 from oil to water was one magnitude lower than that in the single liquid phase of oil or water,and the effect of pressure was not significant.Based on the diffusion coefficient of CO2 in a single liquid phase and the proposed numerical method,the pressure drop and the numerical diffusion coefficient in the process of CO2 diffusion from oil to water were calculated.The relative errors between the experimental and numerical results were within 9%.Therefore,the numerical method proposed herein can be used to predict the diffusion process of CO2 from oil to water and the diffusion coefficient associated with this process.