Improving the Performance of Supercritical CO2 as an Oil Recovery Solvent

Nearly 5% of the oil produced in the US (about 300,000 barrels of oil each day) is attributable to the injection of supercritical CO2 into subterranean sandstone or carbonate formations. Even though this technology has been used safely and successfully for over 40 years, it is plagued by problems related to the low viscosity of CO2. At reservoir conditions, the viscosity of CO2 is about 0.05 cp, while the viscosity of the crude oil is typically in the 1-10 cp range. As a result, the CO2 tends to finger from the injection well, through the formation, toward the production wells rather than uniformly displacing the oil from the pores of the rock. This results in frustratingly high amounts of CO2 production and recycle, and disappointingly low rates of oil recovery and cumulative amounts of oil production. The ability to alter the mobility of high pressure CO2 flowing through the rock, and to re-direct its flow into oil-bearing layers of rock, is a challenge that is ripe for chemical engineering solutions. In this presentation, a review of techniques for increasing the viscosity of CO2, generating CO2-in-brine foams that lower the mobility of CO2, and using gels to plug up highly permeable watered-out layers of rock that steal CO2 will be presented

“Podemos lograr una economía más segura y saludable”

Durante la conferencia de Desarrollo Sostenible, el Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente será uno de los que presentará diversos conceptos “verdes” para ser discutidos por las cabezas de Estado de los países participantes.Gerencia de Comunicación e Imagen Institucional, DNA SICC, INTAFil: Nuttall, Enick. PNUMA/ONU; Keni

Gastos no deducibles y el impuesto a la renta en Inversiones San Gabriel S.A.

La presente investigación tiene como objetivo de estudio determinar la relación de los gastos no deducibles en el impuesto a la renta en la empresa Inversiones San Gabriel S.A., con la finalidad de que el personal de las áreas administrativas y financieras de la empresa logren identificar cuando un gasto realizado no cumple con las normativas y límites establecidos por la SUNAT. La tesis ha sido desarrollada con el tipo de investigación básica, realizando un enfoque cuantitativo, diseño no experimental y de corte trasversal y correlacional. La muestra un total de 23 trabajadores, asimismo, técnica de encuesta y como instrumentos el cuestionario aplicado a la muestra y ficha documental para recolección de información de la empresa. La fiabilidad de los resultados se validó a través del Alpha de Cronbach en donde se obtuvo para la variable independiente el valor de 0.912 y para la variable dependiente 0.829, encontrándose con una fiabilidad de excelente para ambas variables. De acuerdo con los resultados obtenidos se concluye que los gastos no deducibles se relacionaron con el impuesto a la renta de los periodos investigados 2019, 2020 y 2021, siendo el periodo con mayor impacto el 2020 y que al 2021 han disminuido considerablemente, sin embargo, no han sido controlados en su totalidad, por lo que, tienen una relación directa e impactan en la determinación del Impuesto a la Renta de la empresa pero de una manera mínima, contrastando la hipótesis con la correlación de Spearman, dando como resultado “es positiva muy baja”, coeficiente 0.075, encontrándose dentro del rango

Ciência e Alimentação : um estudo sobre a presença da temática alimentar na revista Pesquisa FAPESP (2018-2022)

O ato de se alimentar, os modos de produção e consumo dos alimentos, constituem partes muito significativas de qualquer sociedade, agregando valores culturais, econômicos e de relação com os ambientes naturais. O acesso a uma alimentação adequada é um direito humano de compromisso internacional, e considera ainda os valores nutricionais e de saúde dos alimentos, juntamente com os componentes culturais dessa alimentação. Concomitante a um aumento no consumo de alimentos processados, em detrimento de alimentos in natura, a partir dos anos 2000, os problemas prioritários de saúde no Brasil passaram a ser as doenças crônicas não transmissíveis, que possuem forte relação com padrões alimentares e estilo de vida. Levantamentos recentes apontaram que no ano de 2022, mais de 33 milhões de pessoas estavam em situação de fome no país, além de mais da metade da população conviver com algum grau de insegurança alimentar. Conhecimentos científicos podem amparar a adoção de hábitos e políticas alimentares que contribuam para a melhoria dos padrões alimentares da população. Para além do espaço escolar, é através da mídia que as pessoas obtêm conhecimentos sobre ciência e tecnologia. Entre os canais de divulgação científica que se propõe a recodificar a linguagem da produção científica para que esta se torne acessível ao público geral, estão as revistas de jornalismo científico. Este trabalho buscou investigar como a revista Pesquisa FAPESP pode contribuir para que os leitores e leitoras interessados em divulgação científica obtenham conhecimentos científicos dos processos que envolvem a alimentação e os modos de produção e consumo dos alimentos. Para isso, foi delimitado um intervalo temporal de 5 anos completos de edições mensais, entre 2018 e 2022, e uma amostra que considerou as reportagens presentes na seção CAPA, que apresentavam alguma relação com a temática. Objetivou-se identificar e analisar a presença/ausência de termos e seus contextos que se relacionam com a temática, além de agrupar esses termos a fim de compor categorias de análise, que foram discutidas em diálogo com trechos das reportagens presentes na revista e outras autoras e autores que tratam da temática. A partir das análises se verificaram presentes na amostra, importantes e atualizadas relações, entre determinadas dietas alimentares e um maior risco de desenvolver doenças, relações entre modelos de produção de alimentos e seus impactos ambientais nos ecossistemas, junto da necessidade de mitigar esses impactos, principalmente pela implementação de novas tecnologias. Alguns modelos alternativos de produção de alimentos, que consideram aspectos sociais e ambientais têm um aparecimento reduzido na amostra. Apesar de presente, a temática da alimentação e alimentos aparece de maneira fragmentada, restringida aos diferentes campos de especialidades. Se evidencia a necessidade de que o fazer científico esteja atrelado a sua própria comunicação e reflexão, abrangendo aspectos sociais, culturais e ambientais, ainda mais em um campo como a alimentação, que é elemento central da vida das pessoas e dos ambientes

Inexpensive CO2 Thickening Agents for Improved Mobility Control of CO2 Floods

The objective of this research was the design, synthesis and evaluation of inexpensive, non-fluorous carbon dioxide thickening agents. We followed the same strategy employed in the design of fluorinated CO{sub 2} polymeric thickeners. First, a highly CO{sub 2}-philic, hydrocarbon-based monomer was to be identified. Polymers or oligomers of this monomer were then synthesized. The second step was to design a CO{sub 2}-thickener based on these CO{sub 2}-philic polymers. Two types of thickeners were considered. The first was a copolymer in which the CO{sub 2}-philic monomer was combined with a small proportion of CO{sub 2}-phobic associating groups that could cause viscosity-enhancing intermolecular interactions to occur. The second was a small hydrogen-bonding compound with urea groups in the core to promote intermolecular interactions that would cause the molecules to 'stack' in solution while the arms were composed of the CO{sub 2}-philic oligomers. Although we were not able to develop a viable thickener that exhibited high enough CO{sub 2} solubility at EOR MMP conditions to induce a viscosity increase, we made significant progress in our understanding of CO{sub 2}-soluble compounds that can be used in subsequent studies to design CO{sub 2}-soluble thickeners or CO{sub 2}-soluble surfactant-based foaming agents. These findings are detailed in this final report. In summary, we assessed many polymers and verified that the most CO{sub 2}-soluble oxygenated hydrocarbon polymer is poly(vinyl acetate), PVAc. This is primarily due to the presence of both ether and carbonyl oxygens associated with acetate-rich compounds. In addition to polymers, we also made small acetate-rich molecules that were also capable of associating in solution via the inclusion of hydrogen-bonding groups in hopes of forming viscosity-enhancing macromolecules. Despite the presence of multiple acetate groups in these compounds, which can impart incredible CO{sub 2}-solubility to many compounds, our attempts to make acetate-rich high molecular weight polymers and small hydrogen-bonding compounds did not yield a highly CO{sub 2}-soluble polymer or hydrogen-bonding associative thickener. The conclusions of our molecular modeling calculations confirmed that although acetates are indeed 'CO{sub 2}-philic', nitrogen-containing amines also interact favorably with CO{sub 2} and should also be examined. Therefore we obtained and synthesized many N-rich (e.g. amine-containing) polymers. Unfortunately, we found that the intermolecular polymer-polymer interactions between the amines were so strong that the polymers were essentially insoluble in CO{sub 2}. For the convenience of the reader, a table of all of the polymers evaluated during this research is provided

High-Temperature Water-Gas Shift Membrane Reactor Study

NETL’s Office of Research and Development is exploring the integration of membrane reactors into coal gasification plants as a way of increasing efficiency and reducing costs. Water-Gas Shift Reaction experiments were conducted in membrane reactors at conditions similar to those encountered at the outlet of a coal gasifier. The changes in reactant conversion and product selectivity due to the removal of hydrogen via the membrane reactor were quantified. Research was conducted to determine the influence of residence time and H2S on CO conversion in both Pd and Pd80wt%Cu membrane reactors. Effects of the hydrogen sulfide-to-hydrogen ratio on palladium and a palladium-copper alloy at high-temperature were also investigated. These results were compared to thermodynamic calculations for the stability of palladium sulfides

The effect of CO2-philic thickeners on gravity drainage mechanism in gas invaded zone

The rate of mass transfer between the fractures and matrix in gas invaded zone can significantly influence on the oil recovery during the forced gravity drainage process. However, in this study, a new approach was suggested to improve the gravity drainage process in gas invaded zone. Poly(fluoroacrylate) (PFA), as a CO2-philic thickener, was injected into the gas invaded zone to illustrate the impact of interfacial mechanisms such as gas diffusion coefficient and interfacial tension (IFT) on oil recovery. Also, the cloud point pressures were measured to ensure that the PFA did not come out of the solution due to a phase change during IFT, gas diffusion coefficient, and gravity drainage experiments. Results showed that the CO2-PFA thickener (20000 ppm) could decrease the IFT from 56 to 24 dyne/cm compared to the pure CO2 scenario, improving the gravity drainage mechanism in the gas invaded zone. In addition, the CO2 diffusion coefficients were increased approximately more than two times during CO2-PFA injection in comparison with pure CO2 injection in both porous media and bulk oil phase scenarios at reservoir conditions. Also, an incremental oil recovery of 16 percent was achieved during PFA/CO2 compared to pure CO2 injection in the gas invaded zone. Therefore, gas gravity drainage is the most important mechanism once gas thickener or CO2 enters the fractures in the gas invaded zone

Environmental Remediation and Conversion of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) into Useful Green Products by Accelerated Carbonation Technology

This paper reviews the application of carbonation technology to the environmental industry as a way of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2), a green house gas, including the presentation of related projects of our research group. An alternative technology to very slow natural carbonation is the co-called ‘accelerated carbonation’, which completes its fast reaction within few hours by using pure CO2. Carbonation technology is widely applied to solidify or stabilize solid combustion residues from municipal solid wastes, paper mill wastes, etc. and contaminated soils, and to manufacture precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC). Carbonated products can be utilized as aggregates in the concrete industry and as alkaline fillers in the paper (or recycled paper) making industry. The quantity of captured CO2 in carbonated products can be evaluated by measuring mass loss of heated samples by thermo-gravimetric (TG) analysis. The industrial carbonation technology could contribute to both reduction of CO2 emissions and environmental remediation