Chemical Engineering Commons^™

Hydraulic Fracturing Experiments To Investigate Circulation Losses, Maximiliano Liberman

Masters Theses

"In recent years the oil and gas industry has been drilling more challenging wells due to long deviated wells, drilling through already depleted reservoirs, sub salt wells and increasing water depth. A major challenge these wells create is to prevent fluid loss into the formation and wellbore breakouts by having accurately determined the mud weight operational window. In addition to accurately determine the fracture gradient, additives in the drilling fluid have been used to enhance the fracture gradient in an industry process named wellbore strengthening. In order to study the phenomenon of fracture gradient alteration, a hydraulic fracturing apparatus was …

Investigation Of Geosteering In Non-Trivial Geological Settings, Anuroop Pandey

Masters Theses

"The well placement technology has advanced to a stage where we can explore small tolerance targets such as thin reservoirs. Well placement with geosteering, which is the real time adjustment of the well path based on the geological responses to place and maintain the well within the best part of the reservoir, is the technology that has made this progress possible. Geosteering however can get very complex with the increasing heterogeneities of the formations and there is no fixed methodology to devise a steering strategy in such complex geological settings. To accommodate this challenge, we investigated three methods to verify …

Surfactant Enhanced Oil Recovery By Wettability Alteration In Sandstone Reservoirs, Omar Elmofty

Masters Theses

"Recovering more oil from existing oil reservoirs using enhanced oil recovery methods holds the key for meeting future energy demands. Even though wettability is a cornerstone in oil recovery, few studies have focused on increasing oil recovery in sandstone reservoirs through wettability alteration. The objective of this thesis is to prove that altering the wettability of a sandstone rock to preferentially water-wet condition will reduce the remaining oil saturation and thus increase the percentage of recovered oil.

Two commercial surfactants were selected after studying both the phase behavior and the interfacial properties of 30 surfactants with oil and 1.00% sodium …

Synthesis Of Nickel Nanoparticles By Gamma-Radiation And Femtosecond Laser Ablation, Vivek Murlidhar Rao

Masters Theses

"Nickel nanoparticles were synthesized by gamma-radiation and femtosecond laser ablation. Aqueous precursors were prepared by uniformly dispersing nickel chloride in a 2:1 ratio of water and isopropanol. Stabilizers employed were Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate (SDS) and Poly Vinyl Pyrrolidone (PVP). Gamma-ray radiolysis of aqueous nickel precursors was investigated as a reducing agent for nickel cations to form atomic seeds for nucleation on multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). 30-60kGy was the dosage used in increments of 10kGy, at a rate of 10kGy/hr. Isopropanol was added to consume the excess of oxidizing species produced by irradiation and form stable secondary radicals. The influence of …

Direct Shear Testing Of Fractured Rocks From Missouri Used To Evaluate Potential Fault Reactivation Induced By Carbon Dioxide Sequestration, Ishan Kumar

Masters Theses

"Geological storage projects of CO₂ are designed to maintain secure storage for thousands of years. Carbon Capture and Storage has been identified as one of the methods which is used to reduce global emission of CO₂ and achieve lower concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere by capturing the CO₂ from the flue gases and storing it in underground formations. Potential leakage of injected CO₂ from the reservoir to the surface is caused by the reactivation of pre-existing faults and fractures which is caused by the change in the state of stresses and the pore pressure. To avoid damage to the …

Formation Of Amyloid Fibrils By Diblock Peptides, Kunal Mukesh Naik

Masters Theses

"The objective of this study was to identify and then synthesize a series of peptides which were able to form fibrils rich in ß-sheet structure and to study the effect of the presence of surfaces on their formation. We decided to focus our experimental work on a family of peptides containing one "beta-sheet forming amino acid" and one 'alpha-helix forming amino acid'. This selection covers a wide range of hydrophillicites and charges and, by avoiding highly hydrophobic amino acids we can assure that the diblock peptides are soluble in a wide range of concentrations and solvent conditions. Three different diblocks …

Kinetic Modeling Of Methanol Synthesis From Carbon Monoxide, Carbon Dioxide, And Hydrogen Over A Cu/Zno/Cr2o3 Catalyst, Daaniya Rahman

Master's Theses

The main purpose of this study was to investigate kinetic models proposed in the

literature for methanol synthesis and select the best fit model using regression techniques

in POLYMATH. Another aim was to use the results from the best fit model to explain

some aspects and resolve some questions related to methanol synthesis kinetics. Two

statistically sound kinetic models were chosen from literature based on their goodness of

fit to the respective kinetic data. POLYMATH, the non-linear regression software, was

used to fit published experimental data to different kinetic models and evaluate kinetic

parameters. The statistical results from POLYMATH were …

Advanced Nanostructured Electro-Catalysts For Electricity Generation And Biorenewable Alcohol Conversion, Zhiyong Zhang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

In my Ph.D research, a wet chemistry-based organic solution phase reduction method was developed, and was successfully applied in the preparation of a series of advanced electro-catalysts, including 0-dimensional (0-D) Pt, Pd, Au, and Pd-Ni nanoparticles (NPs), 1-D Pt-Fe nanowires (NWs) and 2-D Pd-Fe nanoleaves (NLs), with controlled size, shape, and morphology. These nanostructured catalysts have demonstrated unique electro-catalytic functions towards electricity production and biorenewable alcohol conversion.

The molecular oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is a long-standing scientific issue for fuel cells due to its sluggish kinetics and the poor catalyst durability. The activity and durability of an electro-catalyst is strongly …

Development Of Eco-Friendly Flame Retardant Fabric Using Phosphorus Based Intumescence Chemistry, Vikas P. Joshi

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The research aims at developing Eco-friendly flame retardant textile fabric using phosphorous based intumescence chemistry. Phosphorous in the structure of Spirocyclic pentaerythriol diphosphoryl chloride (SPDPC) acts as the main group to impart flame retardancy. Intermediate compounds were synthesized in the laboratory and finally converted into sol. The silane sol was applied to the textile material using pad-dry-cure method. The intermediate compounds and the coated material were tested using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), and Thermogravemetric analysis (TGA) testing instruments. Vertical flammability testing was performed as per ASTM D-6413 standards to test the fabric for its flame …

Processes Involving Acid Gas Solubility In Room Temperature Ionic Liquids (Rtils), Fadekemi E. Osideinde

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The literature contains a number of thermodynamic studies involving the solubility of acid gases in RTILs. This thesis looks at using these studies in the context of two processes: membrane separation and absorption refrigeration cycles. The first part of this study investigated the separation of a mixed dry gas feed of CO2/CH4 by four Stabilized Ionic Liquid Membranes (SILMs); 1-Ethyl-3-methlyimidazolium dicyanamide, [emim][DCA], 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium thiocyanate, [emim][SCN], 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, [emim][Tf2N] and 1-Butyl-3-methylimidazolium nitrate, [bmim][NO 3]. The selectivities and permeances for the CO2/CH 4 feed were measured in all four SILMs at various partial pressures of CO2 in the feed and at two …

Preprocessing Of Biomass Using Mechanical, Chemical And Microbial Techniques, Swetha Mahalaxmi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Biomass-derived fuels have acquired a lot of attention recently due to increasing emphasis on energy independence, efforts to utilize abundance of green resources and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. Grasses, agricultural residues, animal residues and waste, used oils, etc., can be used as starting materials in the production of biofuels. Various preprocessing techniques used in the preprocessing of biomass, such as microbial preprocessing, mechanical preprocessing and chemical pretreatment, are used for enhancing the digestibility of biomass to sugars for ethanol production. In this work, studies were conducted to improve the microbial, chemical and mechanical preprocessing of switch grass by decreasing …

Admicellar Polymerization To Compatibilize Calcium Carbonate With Oil-Based Drilling Mud, Olugbenga Samuel Ojo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Weighting agents like calcium carbonate (CC) are added to drilling mud to improve mud properties and performance during oil and gas drilling operations. Oil-based mud (OBM), a more preferred drilling mud, being hydrophobic is particularly non-compatible with hydrophilic CC. This work explored an economically viable admicellar polymerization technique to surface-modify the high energy hydrophilic CC surface to a low energy hydrophobic surface by polymerizing organic styrene monomer within an admicelle of nonionic surfactant Triton X-100 adsorbed on the CC surface. BET N2 particle size analysis, Soxhlet extraction of the coated polymer, Fourier transform infrared-attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR) spectra analysis, and …

"Lead-Free Solders Are Currently Used In The Electronic Components Industry…", Timothy Mead

Summer Community of Scholars Posters (RCEU and HCR Combined Programs)

No abstract provided.

Investigation Of Carbon Corrosion Resistance Of Cnt Containing Electrode, Diana Larrabee, William A. Rigdon, Eli Mcpherson, Joshua Sightler, Xinyu Huang

Faculty Publications

Carbon support corrosion is one of the major degradation mechanisms of polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell. Carbon oxidation occurs in PEM electrode and is accelerated at high potential created by adverse operating conditions and improper distribution of reactants and products [1, 2, 3]. Carbon corrosion can lead to the thinning of the electrode layer and severe performance degradation. The detailed mechanisms of carbon support corrosion induced performance loss are still not fully understood; it is believed that the following events contribute to the decay: (1) structural collapse of the porous electrode due to the loss of carbon; (2) carbon …

Development Of Tailor-Designed Gold-Platinum Nanoparticles Binary Catalysts For Efficient Formic Acid Electrooxidation, Islam M. Al-Akraa Dr, Ahmad M. Mohammad Prof, Mohamed S. El-Deab Prof, Bahgat E. El-Anadouli Prof

Chemical Engineering

The modification of a glassy carbon (GC) electrode with platinum (PtNPs) and gold (AuNPs) nanoparticles is targeted to fabricate efficient anodes for the electrooxidation of formic acid (FA). A proper adjustment of the deposition sequence of PtNPs and AuNPs could eventually enhance the electrocatalytic activity of the electrode in such a way that suppresses the CO poisoning effect during FA oxidation. The highest catalytic activity is obtained at the Au/Pt/GC electrode (with PtNPs firstly deposited on the GC electrode followed by AuNPs). This superb enhancement is quantified by comparing the relative ratio of the direct vs. the indirect oxidation peaks …

Application Of Electrospinning Technique In The Fabrication Of A Composite Electrode For Pemfc, Joshua Sightler, Eli Mcpherson, William A. Rigdon, Xinyu Huang

Faculty Publications

The Pt/C catalysts were mixed with carbon nanotube (CNT), Nafion™ dispersion and a fiber former, polymer poly-acrylic acid (PAA), to form an ink. The ink was deposited onto aluminum foil attached to a rotating collector via an electrospinning process. The ink composition, mixing procedure, and the E-spin parameters were studied for producing a uniform nanofiber mat on the aluminum substrate. The fiber-mat containing active catalyst ingredients was heat treated and decal transferred onto a Nafion membrane to form a membrane electrode assembly (MEA).

A Study Of The Electrocoalescence On Spherical Droplets In A Flow Focusing Juction Microchannel, Shady A. Habib

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Equilibrium Conditions Of Hydrate-Forming Pickering Emulsions, Radha Ambekar

Dissertations and Theses

A key factor in hydrate risk management for an oil-governing system is the stability of the emulsified water with gas hydrate formation. The kinetics of formation of cyclopentane hydrates is investigated in a water-in-oil emulsion using differential scanning calorimetry with the effect of surfactant Span 80. In a classical DSC experiment, an emulsion sample is subjected to a regular cooling and heating cycle between temperatures that include freezing and melting of the dispersed droplets. New phase equilibrium data of (cyclopentane hydrate + water 60:40) emulsions, in the concentration range from 0.1 to 2% of Span 80, is determined at atmospheric …

Study Of Air Bubble Injection Into Laminar And Turbulent Water Flow Through An Annular Test Section, Debbrata Das

Dissertations and Theses

Injection of bubbles into a vertical upward flow of water in an annular flow channel was studied experimentally under laminar and turbulent conditions. In order to measure the size and shape of the bubbles, a flow visualization system was set up in a vertical test section with a high speed video camera. A PIV measurement technique was also used to determine laminar and turbulent velocity profiles in the liquid stream. In this study, an efficient image processing methodology was used to obtain the velocity profiles, bubble size, shapes and trajectory at different Reynolds numbers. The measured velocity profiles matched theoretical …

Hydrate Formation Using Dowfax Gemini Surfactants, Franchette Viloria

Dissertations and Theses

"Gas hydrate formation is a stochastic and slow process. However, the use of a small amount of surfactant can speed up the rate of hydrate formation. This work investigates the effect of two Dow surfactants, Dowfax 2A1 and Dowfax C6L, on gas hydrate formation, first by determining the adsorption isotherms via liquid-liquid titration methods, and then investigating the role in methane hydrate formation in a non-stirred batch reactor. Both surfactants have almost similar structure, sharing doubly charged headgroups, but these surfactants express different effects on hydrate formation. 2A1 and C6L both show monolayer formation at around concentration of 1.0 mM; …