Flow of Nanodispersed Catalyst Particles Through Porous Media: Effect of Permeability and Temperature Amir Zamani, 1, 2 * Brij Maini 1 and Pedro Pereira-Almao 1 1. Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4 2. Now With Suncor Energy, Inc., 150-6th Ave., SW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2P 3E3 The proposed in situ catalytic upgrading of heavy oil to achieve an environmentally sustainable method for heavy oil recovery requires the placement of nanodispersed catalyst particles deep into the formation where it can accelerate the high-temperature upgrading reactions. In continuation of the previous work [Zamani et al., Energy Fuels 24, 4980-4988 (2010)], this paper presents results of several new experiments carried out to examine the effects of other parameters, including the connate brine salinity, absolute permeability, sand-bed temperature and particle concentration on the propagation of nanoparticles in porous media. The results show that lower permeability, increased operating temperature and higher particle concentration did not significantly affect the propagation of nanodispersed catalyst suspension through the sand-bed. Virtually the same filtration behaviour, displaying a rapid increase of effluent concentration at 1 pore volume injected to a steady concentration close to the inlet concentration was seen in all experiments. A classical phenomenological approach was used to model the macroscopic propagation behaviour of suspended particles in the porous medium. The model was successful in history matching the effluent composition profile observed in the experiments and the deposition profile obtained from post-test analysis of the sand-bed. Keywords: nanocatalyst, heavy oil, in situ upgrading, deep bed filtration, porous media INTRODUCTION V ast heavy oil and bitumen resources and the current envi- ronmental challenges associated with their exploitation beckon new ideas for improved production technology. One promising new idea is the proposed in situ upgrading of heavy oil during thermal recovery by catalytic hydrogenation using nanometer size dispersed catalysts. The idea is based on the possibility of integrating the catalytic hydrogenation reac- tion with thermal recovery methods by using the reservoir as a high-temperature reactor. However this requires placement of the ultra-dispersed catalysts deep into the formation where it can accelerate the high temperature upgrading reactions (Weissman and Kessler, 1996; Weissman et al., 1996; Weissman, 1997; Moore et al., 1999). Flow of suspended nanoparticles through porous media has not been studied deeply and there is a serious lack of experimental data in this area. Moreover, transport of a colloidal dispersion of nanoparticles suspended in oil through a porous medium is associated with uncertainties and unknown behaviour. Most of available information on flow behaviour of dispersed particles through porous media comes from extensive studies of deep bed filtration of aqueous suspensions in subsurface environments which cannot be easily applied to ultra-dispersed catalysts sus- pended in oil except in a qualitative sense. The previous paper (Zamani et al., 2010) presented promising results regarding propagation of nanodispersed catalysts particles through porous media. It was shown that nanodispersed cata- lysts, suspended in an oil medium, can propagate through a sand pack and be produced at the outlet face without causing perme- ability damage. The concentration of nanoparticles in produced samples increased rapidly around 1 pore volume injected (PVI) and became almost constant but somewhat lower than the inlet concentration after 2 to 3 PVI. It was seen that particles tend to be ∗ Author to whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail address: zamani.amir@gmail.com Can. J. Chem. Eng. 90:304–314, 2012 © 2011 Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering DOI 10.1002/cjce.20629 Published online 3 August 2011 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). | 304 | THE CANADIAN JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING | | VOLUME 90, APRIL 2012 |