Ali Abedini | University of Toronto (original) (raw)
Papers by Ali Abedini
All Days, Jun 27, 2010
The assessment of chromium concentrations in plants requires the quantification of a large number... more The assessment of chromium concentrations in plants requires the quantification of a large number of soil factors that affect their potential availability and subsequent toxicity and a mathematical model that predicts their relative concentrations. Many soil characteristics can change the availability of chromium (Cr) to plants in soils. However, accurate, rapid and simple predictive models of metal concentrations are still lacking in soil and plant analysis. In the present work a novel artificial neural network (ANN) model was developed as an alternative rapid and accurate tool for the prediction of Cr concentration in dwarf bean leaves grown in the laboratory on phytoremediated contaminated soils treated with different amendments. First, sixteen (4×4) soil samples were harvested from a phytoremediated contaminated site located in southwestern France. Second, a series of measurements were performed on the soil samples. The inputs are the soil amendment, the soil pH, the soil electrical conductivity and the dissolved organic carbon of the soil, and the output is the concentration of Cr in the dwarf bean leaves. Third, an ANN model was developed and its performance was evaluated using a test data set and then applied to predict the exposition of the bean leaves to the Cr concentration versus the soil inputs. The performance of the ANN method was compared with the traditional multi linear regressions method using the training and test data sets. The results of this study show that the ANN model trained on experimental measurements can be successfully applied to the rapid prediction of plant exposition to Cr.
Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, 2010
The precipitation and deposition of crude oil polar fractions such as asphaltenes in petroleum re... more The precipitation and deposition of crude oil polar fractions such as asphaltenes in petroleum reservoirs reduce considerably the rock permeability and the oil recovery. Therefore, it is of great importance to determine "how much" the asphaltenes precipitate as a function of pressure, temperature and liquid phase composition. Extensive new experimental data for the amount of asphaltene precipitated in an Iranian crude oil has been determined with various solvents at different temperatures and dilution ratios. All experiments were carried out at atmospheric pressure. The experimental data obtained in this study were used to examine the scaling equations proposed by Rassamdana et al. and Hu et al. We introduced a modified version of their proposed scaling equation. Our observation showed that the results obtained from the present scaling equation are more satisfactory. Furthermore, an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model was also designed and applied to predict the amount of asphaltene precipitation at a given operating condition. The predicted results of asphaltene precipitation from ANN model was also compared with the results of Rassamdana et al., Hu et al. and our proposed scaling equations. It was observed that there is more acceptable quantitative and qualitative agreement between experimental data and predicted amount of asphaltene precipitation through using ANN model and this model can be a more accurate method than scaling equations to predict the asphaltene precipitation.
Energy & Fuels, 2021
Thermal recovery processes, and in particular, Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD), are the mo... more Thermal recovery processes, and in particular, Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD), are the most common and practical in situ technology for bitumen extraction. While SAGD is effective, steam in...
candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Petroleum Systems Engineering, has presented ... more candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Petroleum Systems Engineering, has presented a thesis titled, Mechanisms of Oil Recovery During Cyclic CO2 Injection process: Impact of Fluid Interactions, operating parameters, and Porous Medium, in an oral examination held on July 8, 2014. The following committee members have found the thesis acceptable in form and content, and that the candidate demonstrated satisfactory knowledge of the subject material.
Scientific Reports
CO2 foam helps to increase the viscosity of CO2 flood fluid and thus improve the process efficien... more CO2 foam helps to increase the viscosity of CO2 flood fluid and thus improve the process efficiency of the anthropogenic greenhouse gas’s subsurface utilization and sequestration. Successful CO2 foam formation mandates the development of high-performance chemicals at close to reservoir conditions, which in turn requires extensive laboratory tests and evaluations. This work demonstrates the utilization of a microfluidic reservoir analogue for rapid evaluation and screening of commercial surfactants (i.e., Cocamidopropyl Hydroxysultaine, Lauramidopropyl Betaine, Tallow Amine Ethoxylate, N,N,N′ Trimethyl-N′-Tallow-1,3-diaminopropane, and Sodium Alpha Olefin Sulfonate) based on their performance to produce supercritical CO2 foam at high salinity, temperature, and pressure conditions. The microfluidic analogue was designed to represent the pore sizes of the geologic reservoir rock and to operate at 100 °C and 13.8 MPa. Values of the pressure drop across the microfluidic analogue during f...
CO2 foam helps to increase the viscosity of CO2 flood fluid and thus improve the process efficien... more CO2 foam helps to increase the viscosity of CO2 flood fluid and thus improve the process efficiency of the anthropogenic greenhouse gas’s subsurface utilization and sequestration. Successful CO2 foam formation mandates the development of high-performance chemicals at close to reservoir conditions, which in turn requires extensive laboratory tests and evaluations. This work demonstrates the utilization of a microfluidic reservoir analogue for rapid evaluation and screening of commercial surfactants (i.e., Cocamidopropyl Hydroxysultaine, Lauramidopropyl Betaine, Tallow Amine Ethoxylate, N,N,N′ Trimethyl-N′-Tallow-1,3-diaminopropane, and Sodium Alpha Olefin Sulfonate) based on their performance to produce supercritical CO2 foam at high salinity, temperature, and pressure conditions. The microfluidic analogue was designed to represent the pore sizes of the geologic reservoir rock and to operate at 100 °C and 13.8 MPa. Values of the pressure drop across the microfluidic analogue during f...
SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition
For optimizing and enhancing hydrocarbon recovery from unconventional plays, the technological ra... more For optimizing and enhancing hydrocarbon recovery from unconventional plays, the technological race is currently focused on development and production of state-of-the-art surfactants that reduce interfacial tension to mitigate obstructive capillary forces and thus increase the relative permeability to hydrocarbon (kro). This study provides insight into the pore-scale evaluation of the latest flowback enhancer technologies currently applied in the Permian Basin, Texas, USA. A multidisciplinary approach, including concepts of nanotechnology, was used to assess fluid-fluid and rock-fluid interactions occurring at the nanopore scale and their implications on enhancing oil recovery. A heterogeneous dual-porosity dual-permeability microfluidic chip was designed and developed with pore geometries representing shale formations. This micro-chip simulated Wolfcamp shale with two distinct regions: (i) a high-permeability fracture zone (20 µm pore size) interconnected to (ii) a low-permeability...
Lab on a Chip
Production of hydrocarbons from shale is a complex process that necessitates the extraction of mu... more Production of hydrocarbons from shale is a complex process that necessitates the extraction of multi-component hydrocarbons trapped in multi-scale nanopores. While advances in nanofluidics have allowed researchers to probe thermodynamics...
Fuel
Abstract Steam assisted gravity drainage is the main technologically and economically feasible me... more Abstract Steam assisted gravity drainage is the main technologically and economically feasible method for in situ bitumen extraction. However, SAGD is energy intensive with economic and environmental challenges. Steam-solvent coinjection has proposed to improve SAGD performance, where hydrocarbon solvent is simultaneously injected with steam to increase the production rate and lower the steam-oil-ratio. The addition of solvent, however, complicates an already complex multicomponent thermal-chemical process. Microfluidics is well suited to quantify the pore-scale of steam-solvent coinjection with a tight control over experimental parameters. In this study, a high-pressure high-temperature micromodel combined with optical and thermal imaging is used to probe the pore-scale of steam-solvent coinjection process at relevant reservoir conditions. The effects of butane and hexane, as well as two industrial solvents, condensate and naphtha, on the pore-scale mechanisms are quantified and compared. The in situ thermal data is used to profile and analyze the condensation zone behavior and steam-solvent azeotropic temperature for all steam-solvent cases. We find that overall performance depends on the difference between steam-solvent azeotropic temperature and steam saturation temperature, the degree of solvent-bitumen dilution, and the degree of asphaltene precipitation in the condensing zone. In contrast with pure solvents and condensate, naphtha results in the highest recovery due to a higher steam-solvent azeotropic temperature, effective dilution, with minimal asphaltene deposition.
Analytical chemistry, Jan 5, 2018
Carbon capture, storage, and utilization technologies target a reduction in net CO2 emissions to ... more Carbon capture, storage, and utilization technologies target a reduction in net CO2 emissions to mitigate greenhouse gas effects. The largest such projects worldwide involve storing CO2 through enhanced oil recovery-a technologically and economically feasible approach that combines both storage and oil recovery. Successful implementation relies on detailed measurements of CO2-oil properties at relevant reservoir conditions (P = 2.0-13.0 MPa and T = 23 and 50 °C). In this paper, we demonstrate a microfluidic method to quantify the comprehensive suite of mutual properties of a CO2 and crude oil mixture including solubility, diffusivity, extraction pressure, minimum miscibility pressure (MMP), and contact angle. The time-lapse oil swelling/extraction in response to CO2 exposure under stepwise increasing pressure was quantified via fluorescence microscopy, using the inherent fluorescence property of the oil. The CO2 solubilities and diffusion coefficients were determined from the swelli...
Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, 2011
Asphaltene precipitation and deposition occur in petroleum reservoirs as a change in pressure, te... more Asphaltene precipitation and deposition occur in petroleum reservoirs as a change in pressure, temperature and liquid phase composition and reduce the oil recovery considerably. In addition to these, asphaltene precipitates may deposit in the pore spaces ...
Lab on a Chip
Si-glass microfluidics have long provided unprecedented precision, robustness and optical clarity... more Si-glass microfluidics have long provided unprecedented precision, robustness and optical clarity. However, chip fabrication is costly (~ 500 USD/chip) and in practice devices are not heavily reused. We present a...
Special Topics & Reviews in Porous Media - An International Journal, 2013
Special Topics & Reviews in Porous Media - An International Journal, 2012
ABSTRACT Reservoir rock type determination is one of the main parameters that plays a governing r... more ABSTRACT Reservoir rock type determination is one of the main parameters that plays a governing role in the simulation and prediction of hydrocarbon reservoir behavior. Hence, it is of great importance to use a method that is capable of determining the rock type ...
Special Topics & Reviews in Porous Media - An International Journal, 2011
ABSTRACT Reservoir rock type determination is one of the main parameters for simulation and predi... more ABSTRACT Reservoir rock type determination is one of the main parameters for simulation and prediction of the hydrocarbon reservoir behavior. Hence it is of great importance to use a method that is capable of determining the rock type accurately. In this study, some of the ...
Energy Procedia, 2014
ABSTRACT This study was conducted to investigate the phase behaviour of CO2-brine and CO2-oil sys... more ABSTRACT This study was conducted to investigate the phase behaviour of CO2-brine and CO2-oil systems under various operating conditions. Through this study, CO2 solubility measurement tests were carried out for CO2-water, CO2-brine, and CO2-oil mixtures at various equilibrium pressures ranging Peq = 0.7-10.3 MPa and temperatures ranging Texp = 21-40 °C. Additionally, series of oil swelling/extraction tests were conducted at aforementioned experimental conditions using a see-through high- pressure cell to determine the oil swelling factor at various equilibrium conditions. CO2 solubility measurement tests showed that at constant temperatures, an increase in CO2 solubility value was observed for CO2-water, CO2-brine, and CO2-oil mixtures when the equilibrium pressure increases. Furthermore, as it was expected for all mixtures, the solubility of CO2 reduces with increased temperature. In this study, it was also found that at a constant temperature, the oil swelling factor, SF, increases up to a pressure so called extraction pressure, Pext, at which majority of the light to medium hydrocarbon groups in the oil phase are extracted by CO2 and vaporized into the CO2-rich phase. Additionally, it was observed that for the pressures higher than the extraction pressure, the oil swelling factor reduced with equilibrium pressure because more hydrocarbon components were extracted at higher pressures. The extraction pressure was determined at different experimental temperatures and results revealed that the extraction pressure increases by increasing experimental temperature. Comparison of the CO2 solubility values in oil at extraction pressures corresponding to different experimental temperatures also showed that the major hydrocarbon extraction occurs when a certain amount of CO2 has dissolved in the oil phase which is called threshold CO2 solubility, χth. The defined threshold CO2 solubility was found to be approximately the same for the CO2-oil mixture under this study at different temperatures.
All Days, Jun 27, 2010
The assessment of chromium concentrations in plants requires the quantification of a large number... more The assessment of chromium concentrations in plants requires the quantification of a large number of soil factors that affect their potential availability and subsequent toxicity and a mathematical model that predicts their relative concentrations. Many soil characteristics can change the availability of chromium (Cr) to plants in soils. However, accurate, rapid and simple predictive models of metal concentrations are still lacking in soil and plant analysis. In the present work a novel artificial neural network (ANN) model was developed as an alternative rapid and accurate tool for the prediction of Cr concentration in dwarf bean leaves grown in the laboratory on phytoremediated contaminated soils treated with different amendments. First, sixteen (4×4) soil samples were harvested from a phytoremediated contaminated site located in southwestern France. Second, a series of measurements were performed on the soil samples. The inputs are the soil amendment, the soil pH, the soil electrical conductivity and the dissolved organic carbon of the soil, and the output is the concentration of Cr in the dwarf bean leaves. Third, an ANN model was developed and its performance was evaluated using a test data set and then applied to predict the exposition of the bean leaves to the Cr concentration versus the soil inputs. The performance of the ANN method was compared with the traditional multi linear regressions method using the training and test data sets. The results of this study show that the ANN model trained on experimental measurements can be successfully applied to the rapid prediction of plant exposition to Cr.
Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, 2010
The precipitation and deposition of crude oil polar fractions such as asphaltenes in petroleum re... more The precipitation and deposition of crude oil polar fractions such as asphaltenes in petroleum reservoirs reduce considerably the rock permeability and the oil recovery. Therefore, it is of great importance to determine "how much" the asphaltenes precipitate as a function of pressure, temperature and liquid phase composition. Extensive new experimental data for the amount of asphaltene precipitated in an Iranian crude oil has been determined with various solvents at different temperatures and dilution ratios. All experiments were carried out at atmospheric pressure. The experimental data obtained in this study were used to examine the scaling equations proposed by Rassamdana et al. and Hu et al. We introduced a modified version of their proposed scaling equation. Our observation showed that the results obtained from the present scaling equation are more satisfactory. Furthermore, an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model was also designed and applied to predict the amount of asphaltene precipitation at a given operating condition. The predicted results of asphaltene precipitation from ANN model was also compared with the results of Rassamdana et al., Hu et al. and our proposed scaling equations. It was observed that there is more acceptable quantitative and qualitative agreement between experimental data and predicted amount of asphaltene precipitation through using ANN model and this model can be a more accurate method than scaling equations to predict the asphaltene precipitation.
Energy & Fuels, 2021
Thermal recovery processes, and in particular, Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD), are the mo... more Thermal recovery processes, and in particular, Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD), are the most common and practical in situ technology for bitumen extraction. While SAGD is effective, steam in...
candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Petroleum Systems Engineering, has presented ... more candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Petroleum Systems Engineering, has presented a thesis titled, Mechanisms of Oil Recovery During Cyclic CO2 Injection process: Impact of Fluid Interactions, operating parameters, and Porous Medium, in an oral examination held on July 8, 2014. The following committee members have found the thesis acceptable in form and content, and that the candidate demonstrated satisfactory knowledge of the subject material.
Scientific Reports
CO2 foam helps to increase the viscosity of CO2 flood fluid and thus improve the process efficien... more CO2 foam helps to increase the viscosity of CO2 flood fluid and thus improve the process efficiency of the anthropogenic greenhouse gas’s subsurface utilization and sequestration. Successful CO2 foam formation mandates the development of high-performance chemicals at close to reservoir conditions, which in turn requires extensive laboratory tests and evaluations. This work demonstrates the utilization of a microfluidic reservoir analogue for rapid evaluation and screening of commercial surfactants (i.e., Cocamidopropyl Hydroxysultaine, Lauramidopropyl Betaine, Tallow Amine Ethoxylate, N,N,N′ Trimethyl-N′-Tallow-1,3-diaminopropane, and Sodium Alpha Olefin Sulfonate) based on their performance to produce supercritical CO2 foam at high salinity, temperature, and pressure conditions. The microfluidic analogue was designed to represent the pore sizes of the geologic reservoir rock and to operate at 100 °C and 13.8 MPa. Values of the pressure drop across the microfluidic analogue during f...
CO2 foam helps to increase the viscosity of CO2 flood fluid and thus improve the process efficien... more CO2 foam helps to increase the viscosity of CO2 flood fluid and thus improve the process efficiency of the anthropogenic greenhouse gas’s subsurface utilization and sequestration. Successful CO2 foam formation mandates the development of high-performance chemicals at close to reservoir conditions, which in turn requires extensive laboratory tests and evaluations. This work demonstrates the utilization of a microfluidic reservoir analogue for rapid evaluation and screening of commercial surfactants (i.e., Cocamidopropyl Hydroxysultaine, Lauramidopropyl Betaine, Tallow Amine Ethoxylate, N,N,N′ Trimethyl-N′-Tallow-1,3-diaminopropane, and Sodium Alpha Olefin Sulfonate) based on their performance to produce supercritical CO2 foam at high salinity, temperature, and pressure conditions. The microfluidic analogue was designed to represent the pore sizes of the geologic reservoir rock and to operate at 100 °C and 13.8 MPa. Values of the pressure drop across the microfluidic analogue during f...
SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition
For optimizing and enhancing hydrocarbon recovery from unconventional plays, the technological ra... more For optimizing and enhancing hydrocarbon recovery from unconventional plays, the technological race is currently focused on development and production of state-of-the-art surfactants that reduce interfacial tension to mitigate obstructive capillary forces and thus increase the relative permeability to hydrocarbon (kro). This study provides insight into the pore-scale evaluation of the latest flowback enhancer technologies currently applied in the Permian Basin, Texas, USA. A multidisciplinary approach, including concepts of nanotechnology, was used to assess fluid-fluid and rock-fluid interactions occurring at the nanopore scale and their implications on enhancing oil recovery. A heterogeneous dual-porosity dual-permeability microfluidic chip was designed and developed with pore geometries representing shale formations. This micro-chip simulated Wolfcamp shale with two distinct regions: (i) a high-permeability fracture zone (20 µm pore size) interconnected to (ii) a low-permeability...
Lab on a Chip
Production of hydrocarbons from shale is a complex process that necessitates the extraction of mu... more Production of hydrocarbons from shale is a complex process that necessitates the extraction of multi-component hydrocarbons trapped in multi-scale nanopores. While advances in nanofluidics have allowed researchers to probe thermodynamics...
Fuel
Abstract Steam assisted gravity drainage is the main technologically and economically feasible me... more Abstract Steam assisted gravity drainage is the main technologically and economically feasible method for in situ bitumen extraction. However, SAGD is energy intensive with economic and environmental challenges. Steam-solvent coinjection has proposed to improve SAGD performance, where hydrocarbon solvent is simultaneously injected with steam to increase the production rate and lower the steam-oil-ratio. The addition of solvent, however, complicates an already complex multicomponent thermal-chemical process. Microfluidics is well suited to quantify the pore-scale of steam-solvent coinjection with a tight control over experimental parameters. In this study, a high-pressure high-temperature micromodel combined with optical and thermal imaging is used to probe the pore-scale of steam-solvent coinjection process at relevant reservoir conditions. The effects of butane and hexane, as well as two industrial solvents, condensate and naphtha, on the pore-scale mechanisms are quantified and compared. The in situ thermal data is used to profile and analyze the condensation zone behavior and steam-solvent azeotropic temperature for all steam-solvent cases. We find that overall performance depends on the difference between steam-solvent azeotropic temperature and steam saturation temperature, the degree of solvent-bitumen dilution, and the degree of asphaltene precipitation in the condensing zone. In contrast with pure solvents and condensate, naphtha results in the highest recovery due to a higher steam-solvent azeotropic temperature, effective dilution, with minimal asphaltene deposition.
Analytical chemistry, Jan 5, 2018
Carbon capture, storage, and utilization technologies target a reduction in net CO2 emissions to ... more Carbon capture, storage, and utilization technologies target a reduction in net CO2 emissions to mitigate greenhouse gas effects. The largest such projects worldwide involve storing CO2 through enhanced oil recovery-a technologically and economically feasible approach that combines both storage and oil recovery. Successful implementation relies on detailed measurements of CO2-oil properties at relevant reservoir conditions (P = 2.0-13.0 MPa and T = 23 and 50 °C). In this paper, we demonstrate a microfluidic method to quantify the comprehensive suite of mutual properties of a CO2 and crude oil mixture including solubility, diffusivity, extraction pressure, minimum miscibility pressure (MMP), and contact angle. The time-lapse oil swelling/extraction in response to CO2 exposure under stepwise increasing pressure was quantified via fluorescence microscopy, using the inherent fluorescence property of the oil. The CO2 solubilities and diffusion coefficients were determined from the swelli...
Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, 2011
Asphaltene precipitation and deposition occur in petroleum reservoirs as a change in pressure, te... more Asphaltene precipitation and deposition occur in petroleum reservoirs as a change in pressure, temperature and liquid phase composition and reduce the oil recovery considerably. In addition to these, asphaltene precipitates may deposit in the pore spaces ...
Lab on a Chip
Si-glass microfluidics have long provided unprecedented precision, robustness and optical clarity... more Si-glass microfluidics have long provided unprecedented precision, robustness and optical clarity. However, chip fabrication is costly (~ 500 USD/chip) and in practice devices are not heavily reused. We present a...
Special Topics & Reviews in Porous Media - An International Journal, 2013
Special Topics & Reviews in Porous Media - An International Journal, 2012
ABSTRACT Reservoir rock type determination is one of the main parameters that plays a governing r... more ABSTRACT Reservoir rock type determination is one of the main parameters that plays a governing role in the simulation and prediction of hydrocarbon reservoir behavior. Hence, it is of great importance to use a method that is capable of determining the rock type ...
Special Topics & Reviews in Porous Media - An International Journal, 2011
ABSTRACT Reservoir rock type determination is one of the main parameters for simulation and predi... more ABSTRACT Reservoir rock type determination is one of the main parameters for simulation and prediction of the hydrocarbon reservoir behavior. Hence it is of great importance to use a method that is capable of determining the rock type accurately. In this study, some of the ...
Energy Procedia, 2014
ABSTRACT This study was conducted to investigate the phase behaviour of CO2-brine and CO2-oil sys... more ABSTRACT This study was conducted to investigate the phase behaviour of CO2-brine and CO2-oil systems under various operating conditions. Through this study, CO2 solubility measurement tests were carried out for CO2-water, CO2-brine, and CO2-oil mixtures at various equilibrium pressures ranging Peq = 0.7-10.3 MPa and temperatures ranging Texp = 21-40 °C. Additionally, series of oil swelling/extraction tests were conducted at aforementioned experimental conditions using a see-through high- pressure cell to determine the oil swelling factor at various equilibrium conditions. CO2 solubility measurement tests showed that at constant temperatures, an increase in CO2 solubility value was observed for CO2-water, CO2-brine, and CO2-oil mixtures when the equilibrium pressure increases. Furthermore, as it was expected for all mixtures, the solubility of CO2 reduces with increased temperature. In this study, it was also found that at a constant temperature, the oil swelling factor, SF, increases up to a pressure so called extraction pressure, Pext, at which majority of the light to medium hydrocarbon groups in the oil phase are extracted by CO2 and vaporized into the CO2-rich phase. Additionally, it was observed that for the pressures higher than the extraction pressure, the oil swelling factor reduced with equilibrium pressure because more hydrocarbon components were extracted at higher pressures. The extraction pressure was determined at different experimental temperatures and results revealed that the extraction pressure increases by increasing experimental temperature. Comparison of the CO2 solubility values in oil at extraction pressures corresponding to different experimental temperatures also showed that the major hydrocarbon extraction occurs when a certain amount of CO2 has dissolved in the oil phase which is called threshold CO2 solubility, χth. The defined threshold CO2 solubility was found to be approximately the same for the CO2-oil mixture under this study at different temperatures.