Petroleum research is responsible for making previously unusable reservoirs economically viable and for limiting the environmental impact of petroleum development. Microfluidics, the study of fluid flow at the micro-scale, is predominantly used to study biological phenomena. Adapting microfluidics to study petroleum requires the use of materials and methods not commonly used.
This thesis focuses on applying microfluidics to the study of petrochemical fluid flow at high-pressure and high-temperature. The first problem addressed is the study of fluids during alkaline steam assisted gravity drainage (alkaline SAGD). The addition of an alkaline additive is found to improve the bitumen production rate by 35-67%. Secondly, two high-pressure, high-temperature, solvent resistant microfluidic interfaces for glass chips are designed to be operated up to 140 bar and 70 degrees Celsius. Lastly, a novel method for fabricating solvent resistant microfluidic devices from Teflon film is demonstrated by measuring the viscosity of toluene-heavy oil blends.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/35602 |
| Date | 11 July 2013 |
| Creators | de Haas, Thomas |
| Contributors | Sinton, David |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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