ABSTRACT: This presentation describes my recent work in developing small scale fluid devices, microfluidics, for energy applications and CO2 sequestration. Microfluidics has emerged over the last two decades with applications in biomedical diagnostics, environmental monitoring, and life sciences research.
These advances have been motivated by the strategic advantages offered by fluid operations at small scales, including reduced reagent use, increased control of species and transport, and potential for rapid, accurate, and massively multiplexed analysis. With the exception of micromodels, the oil and gas industry has not employed microfluidics-based technologies to a significant degree, despite many opportunities. Over the last three years, I have married my traditional petroleum engineering expertise with the field of microfluidics. I will prove a brief overview of my previous training, my current work in developing microfluidics technology for the oil and gas industry, and future directions for this emerging area. Recent examples include CO2 diffusion in reservoir fluids, CO2 detection and phase behavior, microfluidics for biofuel production, solvent-heavy oil mutual diffusion, microfluidics for steam based bitumen recovery and nano-particle based foam for oil recovery.
Key results indicate improved accuracy over conventional testing methods, with up to two orders of magnitude improvements in speed.
Bio-sketch: Dr. Hossein Fadaei obtained his BSc. (2000) and MSc. (2002) in Chemical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology, in Iran. Then in 2004, received a full scholarship from Total S.A. to obtain MSc. and PhD. degree in petroleum engineering at the French Petroleum Institute, in France. His PhD thesis focus was on in-situ combustion (ISC) processes for heavy oil recovery from fractured carbonate reservoirs and was a collaborative effort between French Petroleum Institute, Total S.A. and Toulouse Fluid Mechanics Institute in France and Stanford University. After his PhD (2010), he did a 4 month postdoctoral work at Ecole des Mines at Albi, France, working on the modelling of oil shale combustion. Then, he joined Professor Sinton’s group in Canada, as a postdoctoral fellow, developing microfluidic technology for CO2 sequestration and oil and gas industry. Currently he holds a research associate position in the Energy and Fluidics Lab, Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Toronto in Canada.