Biodiesel is becoming one of the most attractive alternative biofuels for petroleum-based diesel fuels. The castor plant is one of the abundant non-edible oils found in many countries. This paper aims to study Libyan castor oil and its potential for diesel conversion. Experiments were carried out in the laboratories of the Specific Center for Training in the Oil Industries in Al-Zawiya. The oil was extracted using a Soxhlet extractor and n-hexane solvent at 60 °C. Transesterification reactions were conducted in a batch reactor (a three-neck flask was used, where the middle opening carries a reflux condensation unit) at 65 °C. The methanol-to-castor oil molar ratio was 6:1, with a catalyst concentration of 1 wt.% relative to the castor oil, and the reaction time was 30 min. Castor oil was analysed and found to have a fatty acid content of 0.7%. The productivity of biodiesel exhibited 80% yield. Standard test methods of analysis were conducted to determine the biodiesel’s properties. Results indicated that the kinematic viscosity at 40 °C was 14.24 cSt, the density was 0.924 g/cm3, the cetane number (CN) was 54 and the pour point was −15 °C, indicating that castor oil biodiesel is of high quality, with a high CN and a low pour point.
History matching is a significant stage in reservoir modeling for evaluating past reservoir performance and predicting future behavior. This paper is primarily focused on the calibration of the dynamic reservoir model for the Meshrif formation, which is the main reservoir in the Garraf oilfield. A full-field reservoir model with 110 producing wells is constructed using a comprehensive dataset that includes geological, pressure-volume-temperature (PVT), and rock property information. The resulting 3D geologic model provides detailed information on water saturation, permeability, porosity, and net thickness to gross thickness for each grid cell, and forms the basis for constructing the dynamic reservoir model. The dynamic reservoir mo
... Show MoreThe present work is devoted to investigate the performance of a homemade Y-shape catalytic microreactor for degradation of dibenzothiophene (DBT), as a model of sulphur compounds including in gas oil, utilizing solar incident energy. The microchannel was coated with TiO2 nanoparticles which were used as a photocatalyst. Performance of the microreactor was investigated using different conditions (e.g., DBT concentration, LHSV, operating temperature, and (H2O2/DBT) ratio). Our experiments show that, in the absence of UV light, no reaction takes place. The results revealed that outlet concentration of DBT decreases as the mean residence time in the microreactor increases. Also, it was noted that operating temperature s
... Show MoreThere are several oil reservoirs that had severe from a sudden or gradual decline in their production due to asphaltene precipitation inside these reservoirs. Asphaltene deposition inside oil reservoirs causes damage for permeability and skin factor, wettability alteration of a reservoir, greater drawdown pressure. These adverse changing lead to flow rate reduction, so the economic profit will drop. The aim of this study is using local solvents: reformate, heavy-naphtha and binary of them for dissolving precipitated asphaltene inside the oil reservoir. Three samples of the sand pack had been prepared and mixed with a certain amount of asphaltene. Permeability of these samples calculated before and after mixed with asphaltenes. Then, the
... Show MoreThe optimum separators operating pressure is determined by using flash calculations and equilibrium ratios. In this study, the optimum separator size for Jambur field is calculated by using equations introduced by Arnold and Stewart and API12J Specification [1]. Because Jambur field has a high production rate two conditions are taken in the study to determine separator size, first based on production rate 80,000 bbl/day and second based on split the production between two banks A and B (40,000 bbl/day for each bank). The calculation resulted in optimum separator pressure for the first stage of 700 psi, and the second stage of 300 psi, and the third stage of 120 psi. The results show that as the number of stages increased above three
... Show MoreEmpirical equation has been presented to predict the optimum hydrodynamic
pressure gradient with optimum mud flow rate (one equation) of five Iraqi oil wells
to obtain the optimum carrying capacity of the drilling fluid ( optimum transport
cuttings from the hole to the surface through the annulus).
This equation is a function of mud flow rate, mud density and penetration
rate without using any charts or graphs.
The correlation coefficient accuracy is more than 0.9999.
Changing oil-wet surfaces toward higher water wettability is of key importance in subsurface engineering applications. This includes petroleum recovery from fractured limestone reservoirs, which are typically mixed or oil-wet, resulting in poor productivity as conventional waterflooding techniques are inefficient. A wettability change toward more water-wet would significantly improve oil displacement efficiency, and thus productivity. Another area where such a wettability shift would be highly beneficial is carbon geo-sequestration, where compressed CO2 is pumped underground for storage. It has recently been identified that more water-wet formations can store more CO2. We thus examined how silica based nanofluids can induce such a wettabil
... Show MoreThe study of surface hardness, wear resistance, adhesion strength, electrochemical corrosion resistance and thermal conductivity of coatings composed from sodium silicate was prepared using graphite micro-size particles and carbon nano particles as fillers respectively of concentration of (1-5%), for the purpose of covering and protecting the oil distillation towers. The results showed that the sodium silicate coating reinforced with carbon nano-powder has higher resistance to stitches, mechanical wear, adhesive and thermal conductivity than graphite/sodium silicate composite especially when the ratio 5% and 1%, the electrochemical corrosion test confirmed that the coating process of stainless steel 304 lead to increasin
... Show MoreIn this study two types of extraction solvents were used to extract the undesirable polyaromatics, the first solvent was furfural which was used today in the Iraqi refineries and the second was NMP (N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone).
The studied effecting variables of extraction are extraction temperature ranged from 70 to 110°C and solvent to oil ratio in the range from 1:1 to 4:1.
The results of this investigation show that the viscosity index of mixed-medium lubricating oil fraction increases with increasing extraction temperature and reaches 107.82 for NMP extraction at extraction temperature 110°C and solvent to oil ratio 4:1, while the viscosity index reaches to 101 for furfural extraction at the same extraction temperature and same