The properties and kinetics characteristics of oxidised ultra-heavy oil in the coke deposition process

High pressure air injection (HPAI) is generally considered an efficient method to drive crude oil. In this paper, the results showed that the oxidation of heavy oil was able to reduce the oxygen content. After the high pressure oxidation, the physical properties of crude oil changed, and it became inflammable. Due to the formation of coke, the viscosity increased sharply and the hydrogen/carbon (H/C) atomic ratio decreased. By using an environmental scanning electron microscope, it was observed that the structures of the original oil were reconstructed and the surface was covered by a large number of inflammable globular structure with a diameter of 500 nm that were believed to effectively reduce the flame point of the oxidised oil. Based on the kinetic analysis, under HTO conditions, deposited coke caused the reaction to be more exothermic, activating the subsequent deposition and forming a stable oxidation front. [Received: January 14, 2016; Accepted: September 18, 2016]