Lab Visit Guide
Lab Visit Guide
Prior the visit, find out about the targeted audience background and organization, number of
people
What to explain: (depends on targeted audience)
a. Organization: Under EOR MOR
1. EOR center
2. South East Asia Carbonate Research Laboratory (SEACARL)
3. Centre of Subsurface Seismic Imaging & Hydrocarbon Prediction (CSI)
The centre of research in EOR was established in 2009 to promote excellence in EOR research
that mostly addresses the needs of industry and to manage laboratory services for the MOR.
b. Overview about EOR and ongoing projects for COREOR:
1. Miscible method: increasing miscibilities, MMP reduction, reduce IFT using chemicals like
alcohol
2. chemical method: alkaline, surfactant, polymer injection, ASP, screening of chemicals for
various functions (for reducing IFT, increasing miscibilities, improving mobility ratio,
production stable emulsions, stable foams etc.), optimization of chemical synthesis (surfactant)
3. Thermal method: steam coreflood
4. Unconventional method: ionic liquid, nanoparticle
5. Others: Simulation and modeling (EoS, micromodel etc.), wellbore technology, improved oil
recovery method, separation optimization, wastewater treatment, drilling and production aspects,
improving sweep efficiencies (relative permeability modification, injection strategies, change in
viscosity and viscoelasticity etc)
c. Laboratories around petroleum engineering department
1. EOR lab (block 15 2nd floor)
2. EOR lab (block J): for chemical EOR
Description and mechanism: automatically detect measuring errors and feature a wide measuring
temperature range, fast heating-up and cooling down-rates and very short measuring cycles.
Function and application: Measurement for density, specific gravity, API (petroleum), BRIX
(sugar), alcohol concentrations and other density related values.
Keyword and picture: density
3. Mettler Toledo RM40 Refractometer
Refractive index, also called index of refraction, measure of the bending of a ray of light when
passing from one medium into another.
Operating conditions: Accuracy 0.0001, Measurement range 1.3200 ... 1.7000 [nD], temperature
range 5.0 ... 100.0C, measurement range BRIX (sugar) 0.00 100.00%, Typical measuring time
20s (5s after reaching temperature equilibrium)
Description and mechanism: measuring liquids to assess their composition or purity, strongly
influenced by temperature and wavelength of light used to measure it
Function and application: input values for other equipment eg. Spinning drop, refractive index
can be used to for correlations between SARA fractions, density to investigate the stability of
asphaltene
Keyword and picture: RI
4. Thermo Scientific Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy
Operating conditions: Spectral range 10-25000cm1
Description and mechanism: a technique which is used to obtain an infrared spectrum of
absorption, emission, photoconductivity or Raman scattering of a solid, liquid or gas, forensic
analysis, pharmaceutical analysis
Function and application: widely used in organic synthesis, polymer science, petrochemical
engineering, pharmaceutical industry and food analysis. In addition, since FTIR spectrometers
can be hyphenated to chromatography, the mechanism of chemical reactions and the detection of
unstable substances can be investigated with such instruments.
Keyword and picture: Detect functional group of sample from library, sample, background
Description and mechanism: MCR 302 can handle fluids from newtonian (water and brine) to
non-newtonian (crude oil, polymers, dilute surfactants, emulsions-micro and macro, miscelles)
fluids. It is functioning as for viscosity studies, viscoelastic behavior and interfacial rheology
studies.
Function and application: rheological test, Application-specific accessories for DMA and DMTA
measurements, rheo-optics, magneto- and electrorheology, interfacial rheology, UV curing and
many other applications. The unit is equipped with vary types of accessories for different
application such as plate-plate system, cone-plate system, double gap system and de nouy ring to
cover wide range of study.
Keyword and picture: rheology
-The experiment can be operated at high pressure (up to 10,000 psi) and high temperature (up to
200C)
4. Hydreval
Applications: visual observation of gas hydrate formation and dissociation, effect of various
chemicals (inhibitors) on hydrate crystal growth and morphology
maintain downstream elevated test pressures. A manually operated hydraulic pump is used to
generate confining pressures to 9,950 psi.
Poroperm
In the reactive module, a pressure sample vessel is heated electrically with a volt heater enclosed
in an explosion proof housing.
a. The solvent is pumped from an onboard supply tank to the cleaning vessel with an air driven
high-pressure pump.
b. A cyclone separator with a stainless steel-packed, water-cooled after-cooler is provided to
separate the CO2 and the used hot solvent when the vessel is drained.
c. The used toluene drains into an explosion proof electric still where it is recovered and
delivered back to the clean solvent supply.
Helium Porosimeter
This system allows for pore volume and grain volume determination on rock samples including
unconsolidated or irregular shape samples. The measure is based on Boyle-Mariottes law theory.
The process takes place in two stages: at stage one a known amount of helium gas is contained in
a cell (pressure and volume accurately known). At stage two, this quantity of gas is shared with
the matrix cup containing the sample. The new pressure is measured and the volume not
accessible to gas (grain volume) is automatically calculated.
Soxhlet Extractor
The Soxhlet apparatus is used to extract and clean the core sample from oil, water and any other
materials. The apparatus is based on a heating mantle to boil the solvent, a sample chamber and a
water-cooled system to condense the solvent vapors. The core sample is first placed into the
sample chamber. Then, the solvent is heated and vaporized. The solvent vapors travel through a
lateral way and rise to the top of the glass tube where the cold trap is. At this place, the vapors
condense and fall into the sample chamber. The solvent fills the chamber and removes soluble
components from the core. Then, the spoiled solvent is evacuated from the chamber through a
siphon and goes back to the flask where it will be redistilled.
Desaturator
Capillary curve is the relationship between pressure applied and stabilised, and water content in
the core samples. The apparatus is dedicated to enable generation of air-brine capillary curves on
core samples. The equipment is mainly composed of a console and a vessel. The console controls
the air pressure supplied to the vessel. It is possible to humidify on line the air used in the
process through a humidifier located on the console.
Hg Capillary System
Manual operated system for the measurement of capillary pressure and pore morphology. Based
on Purcell method, mercury is injected into plug sized samples at know volume from vacuum to
2,000 psi (140 bar). The instrument uses a hand operated pump for mercury injection and a
coreholder equipped with an opening windowed chamber cap for easy loading / unloading
operations and mercury level visualization. The control panel includes the pore pressure
regulator, the pore pressure transducer with the digital display and a vacuum manometer.