Publications related to Heavy crude oil

Long-term biodegradation of crude oil in high-arctic backshore sediments: The Baffin Island Oil Spill (BIOS) after nearly four decades

With an on-going disproportional warming of the Arctic Ocean and the reduction of the sea ice cover, the risk of an accidental oil spill from ships or future oil exploration is increasing. It is hence important to know how crude oil weathers in this enviro ...

2023

Monodisperse Selectively Permeable Hydrogel Capsules Made from Single Emulsion Drops

Esther Amstad, Alexandre Louis André Persat, Huachuan Du, Mathias Steinacher, Alice Cont

Capsules are often used to protect chemical and biological entities from the environment, to control the timing and location of their release, or to facilitate the collection of waste. Their performance depends on the thickness and composition of their she ...

2021

Petrophysical properties of heavy oil-bearing carbonate rocks and their implications on petroleum system evolution: Insights from the Majella Massif

Carolina Giorgetti

In this work, we investigate the role of hydrocarbons in changing the petrophysical properties of rocks by merging laboratory measurements, outcrops characterization, and subsurface data focusing on a carbonate-bearing reservoir (Bolognano Formation) of th ...

2020

Equilibrium commodity prices with irreversible investment and non-linear technologies

Pierre Collin Dufresne

We model oil price dynamics in a general equilibrium production economy with two goods: a consumption good and oil. Production of the consumption good requires drawing from oil reserves at a fixed rate. Investment necessary to replenish oil reserves is cos ...

2018

An advanced methodology for the mix design optimization of hot mix asphalt

André-Gilles Dumont, Sara Bressi, Manfred Partl

The bitumen quantity to add to asphalt mixtures depends on the surfaces of aggregates and filler to be coated. The formulas currently available in the literature have limitations such as considering all the fillers with the same specific surface or the agg ...

Elsevier Sci Ltd2016

Dynamic investigation of nutrient consumption and injection strategy in microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) by means of large-scale experiments

Koen Blanckaert

Microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) depends on the in situ microbial activity to release trapped oil in reservoirs. In practice, undesired consumption is a universal phenomenon but cannot be observed effectively in small-scale physical simulations due t ...

Springer2015

Constitutive analysis of shale: a coupled damage plasticity approach

Lyesse Laloui, Francesco Parisio

Shales have become increasingly important because they play key roles in modern energy and environmental geomechanics applications, such as nuclear waste storage, non-conventional oil and gas operations and CO2 geological storage. Shale behaves in a quasi- ...

Elsevier2015

Advances in Structural Elucidation of Small Molecules via High Performance Mass Spectrometry

Konstantin Zhurov

Qualitative and quantitative analyte analysis is omnipresent: from quality control in food, pharmaceutical, biotechnology industries, to new molecular syntheses, detection of explosives and drugs, as well as natural compound mixture analysis, such as crude ...

EPFL2014

Oxygenated weathering products of Deepwater Horizon oil come from surprising precursors

Jonas Gros

Following the release of crude oil from the Macondo well in 2010, a wide range of weathering processes acted on the spilled oil. A recent study revealed that samples from this spill were oxidized into oxygenated hydrocarbons (OxHC) comprising more than 50% ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2013

Optimal Design of Solar Assisted Hydrothermal Gasification for Microalgae to Synthetic Natural Gas Conversion

François Maréchal, Adriano Viana Ensinas, Alberto Mian, Gianluca Ambrosetti

Catalytic hydrothermal gasification is a promising technology which allows the conversion of wet biomass into methane rich syngas. It consists of three major steps, in which thermal energy has to be supplied at different temperature levels, leading to mult ...

2013

Hydrophobic Meshes for Oil Spill Recovery Devices

Francesco Stellacci

Widespread use of petrochemicals often leads to accidental releases in aquatic environments, occasionally with disastrous results. We have developed a hydrophobic and oleophilic mesh that separates oil from water continuously in situ via capillary action, ...

Amer Chemical Soc2013

Metallocene Catalyzed Polyolefins For Improving Thermal And Mechanical Properties Of Bitumen Blends

John Christopher Plummer, Chiara Spadaro

Bitumen is a complex viscoelastic material used as a binder in applications ranging from road paving to waterproof membranes for roofing [1]. In such applications, bitumen is often blended with a polymer in order to improve its elasticity. The resulting po ...

2010

Variance Risk Premia in Energy Commodities

Anders Trolle

This paper investigates variance risk premia in energy commodities, particularly crude oil and natural gas, using a robust model-independent approach. Over a period of 11 years, we find that the average variance risk premia are significantly negative for b ...

2010

Integrated design of a gas separation system for the upgrade of crude SNG with membranes

Martin Gassner

This paper investigates different design strategies and process layouts for upgrading crude synthetic natural gas (SNG) produced from lignocellulosic biomass to grid quality. The design problem is outlined by studying the involved key aspects with respect ...

2009

Effect of base bitumen composition on asphalt rubber binder properties

André-Gilles Dumont, Mehdi Ould Henia

The asphalt rubber blend properties are strongly related to its base components properties. The base bitumen composition is considered as a key factor influencing the final rheological properties of asphalt rubber binder. This paper describes results from ...

EMPA2008

Assessment of the rheological properties of asphalt rubber binder and its residual phases

André-Gilles Dumont, Mehdi Ould Henia

The asphalt rubber blends design is an empirical procedure and is quite sensitive to the variability of the components properties. A better understanding of the physical phenomenon involved during the curing process is a prerequisite step to propose a rati ...

2006

Oleaginous plant seeds and seed by-products for water treatment

Julien Boucher

The treatment of water is needed for the supply of adequate quantity and quality of drinking water, as well as before the discharge of wastewater to the environment. Treatment technologies are often costly, involve chemicals that may have detrimental effec ...

EPFL2006

Modélisation et prédiction du comportement rhéologique des mélanges bitume caoutchouc

Mehdi Ould Henia

Asphalt rubber is a modified binder widely used in pavement construction. Composition design methods of asphalt rubber blends are exclusively empiric and rely on the selection of the optimal combination of parameters after a long experimental program. The ...

EPFL2005