Experimental Investigation of Gas-Heavy Oil Molecular Diffusion Coefficient in Porous Media: Experimental Results for CO2 in Iranian Crudes

Molecular diffusion of gases in crude oils plays a crucial role in several oil recovery processes especially in cold-based production process. However, experimental data concerning CO2 diffusivity in heavy oils due to the tedious nature of diffusivity measurements are relatively rare in the open literature. In this work, a comprehensive experimental investigation of the effective molecular diffusion determination of CO2-heavy oil systems in homogeneous porous media was studied. The so-called pressure decay method was applied to measure the molecular diffusivity of carbon dioxide in heavy oil. Furthermore, effect of various parameters such as initial pressure, temperature and porous media on molecular diffusion coefficient have been analyzed and based upon experimental results, a new mathematical correlation for prediction of CO2-heavy oil molecular diffusion coefficient in presence of porous medium as a function of temperature was proposed.