Understanding the
adsorption state and molecular behavior of the
diverse components of shale oil in shale slits is of critical importance
for exploring novel enhanced shale oil recovery techniques, but it
is hard to be achieved by experimental measurements. In this paper,
molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are performed to quantitatively
describe the microbehavior of shale oil mixtures containing different
kinds of hydrocarbon components, including asphaltene, in quartz slits.
The spatial distributions of all the presenting components are given,
the interaction energy between the components and quartz is analyzed,
and the diffusion coefficients of all the components are calculated.
It was found that asphaltene molecules play a vitally important role
in restricting the detachment and diffusion movement of all hydrocarbon
components, which is actually a key problem limiting the recovery
efficiency of shale oil. The effects of temperature, slit aperture,
and the appearance of CO2 on the adsorption behavior of
the different shale oil components are examined; the results suggest
that the light and medium components are the fractions with the most
potential in thermal exploitation, while injection of CO2 is beneficial for the extraction of all the components, especially
the medium components. This work gives insights into the effect of
asphaltene on shale oil recovery in quartz slits and might provide
guidance on the utilization of thermal and CO2-enhanced
enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques in shale oil production.
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