(24b) New Directions for the Oilsands and Heavy Oil Industry Enabled by Fundamental Research

Hydrocarbon production and refining have entered their second century as global, industrial scale processes. There is a tendency to treat them as sunset industries with only limited research and development needs and potential, as large thermophysical property databases have been created, and a panoply of experimental techniques, and commercial computational tools have been available for some time. While it can be argued that for natural gas and light oil processing, this is so, even for these cases critical exceptions arise particularly with respect to phase behavior and physical property prediction quality that affect process safety and optimization [1]. For unconventional hydrocarbon resources (e.g.: heavy oil and bitumen), a growing segment of the hydrocarbon energy and petrochemical industries, this is certainly not the case. Customary experimental and computational tools are of limited value because bitumen and heavy oil include nano-dispersed and self-assembled phases, are opaque to visible light, include solid phases, and comprise large molecules that are ill-defined. Process identification, design and optimization present formidable challenges for engineers and researchers. Phase equilibria, and transport properties [2, 3] are not readily measured or predicted. Chemical reaction schemes are not readily optimized. Apparently simple measurements such as viscosity, a key transport property in production and pipelining, have become an uncertain and debated topic [3]. The number and nature of phases present and the enthalpy of mixing associated with bitumen + n-alkanes, a mixture class which arises in paraffinic deasphalting and blending, remain unresolved. Much work is conducted blind or by analogy and it is not clear whether existing processes, from production to separation and refining are appropriate or have been optimized with respect to capital or operating cost, greenhouse gas emission, efficiency or energy use. The molecular composition, phase behaviour and physical properties of these hydrocarbon resources are complex. Significant experimental and modeling challenges are present at all length scales. The nature and behaviours of these materials are only being discovered through creative and coordinated use of diverse and novel experimental and theoretical approaches targeting knowledge gaps at the molecular, supramolecular and bulk material length scales, and keeping track of what is really known at each step. One example, drawn from our recent work shows how to construct phase diagrams for bitumen and asphaltenes using a combination of calorimetry, rheometry, quantum mechanics, polarized light microscopy and photoacoustic infrared spectroscopy [4-6]! New data and knew knowledge are creating new opportunities in a challenged and challenging sector. 1. Fluid Phase Equilibria 264 (2008) 137-146; 2. Petroleum Science and Technology, 25 (2007) 773?790; 3. J. Chem. Eng. Data, 55 (2010) 1389-1397; 4. Fluid Phase Equilibria 268 (2008) 51?60; 5. Fluid Phase Equilibria 268 (2008), 134-141; 6. Fluid Phase Equilibria 272 (2008) 32-41.