Chemical Engineering Commons^™

Nanoparticle Catalytic Enhancement Of Carbon Dioxide Reforming Of Methane For Hydrogen Production, Nicholas Groden

Doctoral Dissertations

The U.S. produces 5559.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, of which 21% is produced by industrial processes. Steam reforming, an industrial process that accounts for 95% of all hydrogen production in industry, produces 134.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide or around 11% of the total carbon dioxide produced by industry. This carbon dioxide is then either emitted or goes through a sequestration process that accounts for 75% of the plant's operational costs. An alternative reaction to steam reforming is dry reforming, which utilizes carbon dioxide rather than emitting it and can be used in conjunction with current …

Atomic Layer Deposition Prepared Nanostructured Materials For Various Catalytic Reactions, Xiaofeng Wang

Doctoral Dissertations

"Atomic layer deposition (ALD) has been widely used for thin film coating and metal nanoparticles (NPs) preparation. In this report, the applications of ALD prepared nanostructured materials in catalysis were examined.

Highly dispersed Pt monometallic catalysts with different substrates and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) supported Pt-Co bimetallic catalysts were synthesized by ALD for selective hydrogenation of α, β-unsaturated aldehydes to unsaturated alcohols (UA). Pt/MWCNTs showed the highest selectivity of UA in selective hydrogenation of citral, as compared to Pt/SiO₂, Pt/ALD-Al₂O₃, and Pt/γ-Al₂O₃. After adding Co, the highest selectivity was achieved …

Hydrodynamics Study Of The Bubble Columns With Intense Vertical Heat-Exchanging Tubes Using Gamma-Ray Computed Tomography And Radioactive Particle Tracking Techniques, Abbas Jawad Sultan

Doctoral Dissertations

"Understanding the hydrodynamics of bubble columns with and without vertical heat-exchanging tubes is a necessity for the proper design, scale-up, and operation of these reactors. To achieve this goal, systematic experiments were performed to visualize and quantify the influence of the presence of vertical internal tubes on the gas holdup distributions and their profiles, axial liquid velocity, and turbulent parameters (i.e., normal and shear stresses; turbulent kinetic energy) by using advanced gamma-ray computed tomography (CT) and radioactive particle tracking (RPT). In this study, the experiments were conducted in 6- and 18-inch bubble columns with an air-water system as the working …

Characterization Of The Cylinderical Split Internal-Loop Photobioreactor With Scenedesmus Microalgae: Advanced Culturing, Modeling, And Hydrodynamics, Laith S. Sabri

Doctoral Dissertations

"Microalgae are fast growing photoynthetic microorganisms and it have very wide range of industrial applications such as biofuels and wastewater treatment. These cells can be grown in a wide variety of systems ranging from open culture systems (e.g., ponds) to closed culture systems of photobioreactor (e.g., airlift). The open culture systems exist in the external environment, and hence, are not intrinsically controllable. However, the microalgae production in enclosed photobioreactors faces prohibitively high production costs with special difficulty in reactor design and scale-up. The light availability and utilization efficiency in the photobioreactor in terms of design and scale-up consider as the …

Engineering Zeolite Catalysts Through Porosity And Surface Acidity Control For Selective Production Of Light Olefins, Xin Li

Doctoral Dissertations

"Zeolites are broadly used as heterogeneous catalysts in various chemical and petrochemical industries to produce value-added chemicals and fuels, mainly due to their large surface area, acid-base properties, high thermal stability, and excellent shape-selectivity. In this dissertation, various zeolite catalysts were engineered through fine-tuning micro-meso-macro-porosity and surface acidity. The engineered zeolites were used as heterogeneous catalysts for production of light olefins such as ethylene and propylene through alcohol dehydration and hydrocarbon cracking reactions.

To control the zeolite porosity and acidity, SAPO-34@ZSM-5 and SAPO-34@Silicalite-1 composites with core-shell structure were synthesized and evaluated in ethanol dehydration reaction. Analysis of catalytic performance revealed …

A Proactive Drilling System To Prevent Stuck Pipe And Differential Sticking, Ethar H. K. Alkamil

Doctoral Dissertations

"During drilling operations for the E oilfield in the Mishrif formation in southern Iraq, stuck pipe and differential sticking have been identified as significant geomechanical and drilling problems for several deviated wells. In this work, an integrated approach with three phases is presented to serve as a proactive geo-drilling system to prevent wellbore instability. In the first phase, a comprehensive geomechanical assessment of the Mishrif formation has been carried out to evaluate the in-situ stresses, maximum horizontal stress orientation, pore pressure, rock properties, and rock strength parameters. Moreover, the geomechanical evaluation has been incorporated into the mud design using three …

Comprehensive Evaluation Of A Novel Eor Method-Coupling Low Salinity Water Flooding And Preformed Particle Gel To Enhance Oil Recovery In Fractured Reservoirs, Ali K. Alhuraishawy

Doctoral Dissertations

"Excess water production in oil fields is becoming a challenging economic and environmental problem as more reservoirs are maturing. Water channeling, one of the primary reservoir conformance problems, is caused by reservoir heterogeneities that lead to the development of high-permeability streaks. The recovery of oil from carbonate reservoirs is usually low due to their extreme heterogeneity caused by natural fractures and the nature of oil-wet matrix. Also, oil recovery from fractured sandstone reservoirs is often low due to areal heterogeneity. Gel treatments have proven to be a successful and inexpensive fluid diversion method when used to plug the thief zones …

Geomechanical Characterizations And Correlations To Reduce Uncertainties Of Carbonate Reservoir Analysis, Farqad Hadi

Doctoral Dissertations

"Although carbonate reservoirs hold a wealth of hydrocarbon, they are among the most difficult types of reservoirs to be characterized. Carbonate reservoirs by nature have complex depositional environments and diagenetic processes in which brittle, ductile, fractured rocks, and vugular pores may all exist within small interval. This huge variance in the rock mechanical properties can cause challenges in the reservoir's development, especially in applications related to geomechanics.

The main objective of this research is to geomechanically characterize and correlate the carbonate mechanical properties with their petrophysical properties. A comprehensive review for the geomechanical-petrophysical properties of carbonates was conducted from previous …

Integrated Study On The Applicability Of Co₂-Eor In Unconventional Liquids Rich Reservoirs, Dheiaa Khafief Khashan Alfarge

Doctoral Dissertations

"Unconventional Liquids Rich Reservoirs (ULR) such as Bakken, Niobrara, and Eagle Ford have become the main target for oil and gas investors as conventional formations started to deplete and diminish in number. These unconventional plays have a huge oil reserve; however, the predicted primary oil recovery is still low as an average of 7.5 %. Unconventional Improved Oil Recovery (UIOR) techniques are still a new concept in the oil industry because there is no commercial project for any IOR technique so far. Injecting carbon dioxide (CO₂) might be the most potential strategy to improve oil recovery in such complex plays. …

Synthesis And Comprehensive Studies Of Nanogels For Enhanced Oil Recovery, Jiaming Geng

Doctoral Dissertations

“Nanomaterials have been developed and applied for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in oil industry. Among the developed nanomaterials, nano-sized crosslinked polymeric gel particles (nanogels) have shown the potential in improving both the macro- and micro-displacing efficiency. This dissertation focuses on the synthesis and the potential EOR mechanisms of nanogels. Nanogels with positive, negative, and neutral charges were synthesized through suspension polymerization. The morphology, size distribution, and zeta potential of nanogels were elucidated by corresponding technologies, such as scanning electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering. The ability of nanogels in oil-water interfacial tension (IFT) reduction and oil-in-water (o/w) emulsion stabilization was …

Limiting Key Drilling Parameters To Control Mud Losses In Basra's Oil Fields, Iraq, Abo Taleb Tuama Al-Hameedi

Doctoral Dissertations

"Wells in Basra's oil fields are highly susceptible to lost circulation problems when drilling through the Dammam, Hartha, and Shuaiba formations. Drilling engineers are challenged to select the optimum value for key drilling parameters such as ECD, Yp, MW, WOB, ROP, and RPM to mitigate mud losses in these formations. Many of these drilling parameters are inter-related and the overall impact of changing key parameters require extensive drilling experience and study. A multi-regression analysis was performed on mud loss event data for more than 300 wells drilled in Basra's oil fields. From this analysis, a model was developed to predict …

Hydrodynamics Related Performance Evaluation Of Upflow Moving Bed Hydrotreater Reactor (Mbr) Using Developed Experimental Methods And Cfd Simulation, Vineet Alexander

Doctoral Dissertations

"Upflow Moving Bed Hydrotreater (MBR) reactor is used for hydrotreating resid crude oil. It is a two-phase upflow reactor having a catalyst bed with conical bottom, and plena. At industrial conditions the reactor is not performing at its best and encountering issues such as hot spots, catalyst agglomeration inside the catalyst bed leading to frequent shutdown of the reactor. The root cause of these problems are linked to the improper hydrodynamics inside the catalyst bed. To investigate this, the industrial scale MBR is scaled down to a pilot scale and indicative and key hydrodynamic parameters are investigated using developed experimental …

Process Simulation And Experimental Investigation Of Biofuel Production In A High Rate Anaerobic Digestion Process, Haider Al-Rubaye

Doctoral Dissertations

"The non-hazardous waste management hierarchy of the US EPA calls for “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle” (or the three R’s) of wastes. The anaerobic digestion process is one of the most important methods that used to treat the wastes and at the same time generate energy out of it. The anaerobic digestion process generates a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide gases which is known as biogas.

The biogas composition is about 50-70% methane and 10-30% of carbon dioxide and trace amount of other gases like hydrogen and hydrogen sulfide. This biogas can be used in power generation, heating systems and …

Experimental And Numerical Investigation On Tar Production And Recycling In Fixed Bed Biomass Gasifiers, Jia Yu

Doctoral Dissertations

"Bioenergy has been utilized for domestic purposes since pre-recorded history and it catches the highlight in the recent decades because it naturally benefits the world climate and energy security. Gasification is one of the key technologies to efficiently and economically convert biomass into syngas and further into biofuels. Despite these outstanding advantages, biomass gasification suffers from the formation of unfavorable byproduct tar and the consequential tar elimination. Moreover, the collected tar is toxic and thus requires storage and strict deposit method to avoid environmental pollution.

To understand the mechanisms of biomass gasification and tar production, simulations with Aspen Plus were …

Computational Design And Numerical Analyses Of Thermal-Hydraulics In A Pwr-Type Small Modular Nuclear Reactor, Vivek Murlidhar Rao

Doctoral Dissertations

"This dissertation focuses on computational design of a PWR-type small modular nuclear reactor (SMR), and analysis of coolant thermal-hydraulics during steady-state operation. Physical design of the SMR is based on the existing AP-1000 and Small Modular Reactor designs by Westinghouse Nuclear.

The first paper discusses a two-stage simulation of turbulent flow in the lower plenum of the RPV. In the first stage, four time-dependent Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) based turbulence models were used to simulate turbulent flow, compare predictions and identify an appropriate turbulence model. In the second stage, the selected turbulence model was once again used to simulate flow on …

The Significance Of Grouping And Missed Bubbles On Interfacial Area Concentration And Void Fraction, Chandller Stephen-Leslie Mills

Doctoral Dissertations

"The two-fluid model is used in nuclear reactor safety codes. Two of the important constitutive relations will be discussed in this study, the interfacial area concentration and void fraction. The Interfacial area concentration is directly affected by the number of bubbles and how these bubbles are categorized into groups. In this study, a new algorithm was implemented to account for trailing bubbles, bubbles with short response times, and the categorization of bubbles based upon diameter for all group 1 bubbles. The optical and conductivity probes were used to determine the void fraction and interfacial area concentration in a bubble column. …

Engineering Polymeric Hollow Fiber Membrane Reactors For Sustainable Chemical Transformation Reactions, Yingxin He

Doctoral Dissertations

“Over the past decade, laboratory-scale continuous-flow processes have witnessed explosive developments and have attracted a great deal of interest with respect to the significance of the economic and environmentally-sustainable production of pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals, and agrochemicals, as well as upgrading of biomass feedstocks. Immobilization of organocatalysts and metal nanoparticles on continuous-flow microreactors offers an efficient catalytic system that exploits and enhances the advantages of both nanocatalysis and flow chemistry, the so-called flow nanocatalysis approach. Various approaches have been developed for the development of continuous-flow reactions including immobilization and subsequent anchoring of organocatalysts and metal nanoparticles within microfluidic reactors. However, many …

Enhancement Of Heat Transfer Coefficient Using Nanofluids For Multi-Stage Flash Desalination (Msf) Plant, Nasser Zouli

Doctoral Dissertations

“The enhancement of thermal conductivity and local heat transfer coefficient, under laminar and turbulent flow regimes, of water-based spherical Al₂O₃, CuO, and Fe₂O₃ nanofluids have been experimentally investigated for the improvement of the thermal desalination processes using a newly developed sophisticated noninvasive heat transfer coefficient probe that is flush mounted on the inner wall surface of the test section. The nanoparticles have been selected because of their superior thermal conductivity and low cost, as well as the magnetic characteristic of Fe₂O₃ nanoparticle since a magnet can collect it and reuse. …

Electrochemical Behavior Of Dense Electrodes For Impedancemetric Nox Sensors, Nabamita Pal

Doctoral Dissertations

NOx (NO and NO2) exhaust gas sensors for diesel powered vehicles have traditionally consisted of porous platinum (Pt) electrodes along with a dense ZrO2 based electrolyte. Advancement in diesel engine technology results in lower NOx emissions. Although Pt is chemically and mechanically tolerant to the extreme exhaust gas environment, it is also a strong catalyst for oxygen reduction, which can interfere with the detection of NOx at concentrations below 100 ppm. Countering this behavior can add to the complexity and cost of the conventional NO x sensor design. Recent studies have shown that dense electrodes are less prone to heterogeneous …

Synthesis, Characterization, And Activity Of Co/Fe Alumina/Silica Supported Ft Catalysts And The Study Of Promoter Effect Of Ruthenium, Sunday Azubike Esumike

Doctoral Dissertations

The alumina and hybrid alumina-silica FT catalyst were prepared by one-step solgel/oil-drop methods using metal-nitrate-solutions (method-I), and nanoparticle-metaloxides (method-2). The nanoparticle-metal-oxides did not participate in solubility equilibria in contrast to metal nitrate in method-1 causing no metal ion seepage; therefore, method-2 yields higher XRF metal loading efficiency than method-1. The thermal analysis confirmed that the metal loading by method-1 and method-2 involved two different pathways. Method-1 involves solubility equilibria in the conversion of metal-nitrate to metal- hydroxide and finally to metal-oxide, while in method-2 nanoparticle-metal-oxide remained intact during sol-gel-oil-drop and calcination steps.

The alumina supported catalysts were dominated by γ-alumina …

Data Analysis And Application Guidelines Of Particle Gel Treatments, Yue Qiu

Doctoral Dissertations

“Water production is a severe worldwide issue in mature oilfields, which results in shortening the economic life of oil and gas wells. Particle gel have been widely applied in mature oilfields to improve reservoir sweep efficiency and control water production. To date, more than 10,000 injection wells were successfully treated by particle gels. However, considerable uncertainty still exists regarding to where and how particle gel treatments can be best applied.

The main objective of this study is to provide application guidelines and prediction model for particle gel treatments through data analysis. In this study, four particle gel treatment datasets have …

Investigation Of Hydraulic Fracture Complexity And The Benefits Of Maximizing Or Minimizing Complexity In Unconventional Resources, Rashid Sheikh Kassim

Doctoral Dissertations

"This dissertation discusses two separate, yet inter-related studies. The first study was an extension of historical work comparing transversely fractured versus longitudinally fractured horizontal wells in multiphase flow environment. The second study investigated hydraulic fracture complexities and the benefits of maximizing or minimizing complexities in unconventional resources and tight reservoirs.

The main objective of this research was to investigate fracture complexity and its impact on well performance and economics. To achieve that objective, three different integrated completions and reservoir models were built. Two of the three models, a hybrid reservoir model and micro-seismic based SRV (stimulated reservoir volume) model, were …

Engineering Advanced Adsorbent Materials For Co₂ Capture Applications, Harshul Thakkar

Doctoral Dissertations

"Global climate change due to the increasing CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere is primarily associated with anthropogenic CO₂ emissions. CO₂ capture technologies using adsorbents have not been implemented commercially due to lack of scalable, practical and cost-effective strategies and are still under development. Moreover, the use of conventional configurations such as pellets and beads for the removal of CO₂ from enclosed environments have been shown to impose limitations to the removal efficiency and system performance. In this dissertation, engineering of advanced and efficient structured adsorbents for practical and scalable CO₂ capture technologies and their use …

Rock And Fluid Flow Characterization On Unconventional Reservoir Using Confocal-Laser-Microscopy And Micromodels, Songyuan Liu

Doctoral Dissertations

"Unconventional oil reservoirs have become significant sources of petroleum production and have even better potential in the future. Many unconventional oil systems consist of nanoscale pore throats, sub-micro-scale pores and micro-scale fractures that are significantly smaller than those from conventional reservoirs. To understand fluid flow behavior in unconventional reservoir, lab approaches were conducted using lab-on-chip method for the direct visualization of the water/oil flow in sub-micro-scale channels and the flow behavior with influence of surfactant and fractures.

In this work, tight sandstone thin slice was characterized using confocal-laser-microscope. Using designed micromodels, microscopic study of interface and residual oil distribution as …

Impact Of Vertical Internals On The Hydrodynamics And Heat Transfer Coefficient In A Gas-Solid Fluidized Bed, Haidar Moafaq Taofeeq

Doctoral Dissertations

"This research studied the impact of the dense vertical immersed heat exchanging tubes on the gas and solids hydrodynamic characteristics, flow regime, pressure drop, and heat transfer in a 0.14 m inside diameter gas-solid fluidized bed column of. Two sizes of vertical internal tube bundles (0.0127 and 0.0254 m) of circular arrangement have been implemented to represent the heat exchange tubes covering 25% of the column cross-sectional area. The experimental work was achieved at different operating conditions and various solids particle types that differ in average particle size, solids density, particles shape, and particles sphericity. The experimental measurements were performed …

Experimental Study Of Natural Convection Heat Transfer And Gaseous Dynamics From Dual-Channel Circulation Loop, Ibrahim Ahmed Said Abdallah

Doctoral Dissertations

"This research focuses on establishing a range of scaled separate and integral effects experiments for studying thermal-hydraulic behavior occurring within a component or region of the prismatic very high-temperature reactor (VHTR) such as plenum-to-plenum heat transfer and gaseous dynamics during natural circulation. Natural circulation of the coolant is the leading capability for VHTR to transport the decay heat from the core to the reactor vessel during accident scenarios. To address this need, a scaled-down facility is designed and developed with only two channels with upper and lower plena. The emphasis is placed on high-resolution and high-fidelity experimental data for local …

Screening Guidelines And Data Analysis For The Application Of In-Situ Polymer Gels For Injection Well Conformance Improvement, Munqith Naeem Rashak Aldhaheri

Doctoral Dissertations

"Excessive water production represents a major industry challenge because of its serious economic and environmental impacts. Polymer gels have been effectively applied to mitigate water production and extend the productive lives of mature oilfields. However, selecting a proper gel technology for a given reservoir is a challenging task for reservoir engineers because of the associated geological and technical complexities and the absence of efficient screening tools.

A comprehensive review for the worldwide gel field projects was conducted to develop an integrated systematic methodology that determines the applicability of three injection well gel technologies including bulk gels, colloidal dispersion gels, and …

Atomic/Molecular Layer Deposition Prepared Size-Selective Catalysts And Supported Nickel Catalysts, Zeyu Shang

Doctoral Dissertations

"Heterogeneous catalysts are widely used because of their many advantages. In this dissertation, the application of atomic/molecular layer deposition (ALD/MLD) in heterogeneous catalyst synthesis and modification was examined.

A novel nanostructured size-selective catalyst was synthesized by depositing ultra-thin porous shells on the surface of catalysts. The ultra-thin porous shells were formed by oxidation of aluminum alkoxide films deposited by MLD. The catalytic activity of the size-selective catalyst was improved by introducing gaps between the porous shell and catalytic metal nanoparticles. The introduction of gaps greatly reduced the catalyst activity loss, which resulted from the contact areas between the active sites …

Experimental Investigations Of Natural Circulation In A Separate-And-Mixed Effects Test Facility Mimicking Prismatic Modular Reactor (Pmr) Core, Mahmoud M. Taha

Doctoral Dissertations

"After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident in 2011, significant attention was directed to investigate natural circulation thermal-hydraulics in Prismatic Modular Reactors (PMRs). Natural circulation is employed as a passive safety feature that passively removes the decay heat released after the loss of flow accidents (LOFA). Several computational studies have addressed such phenomena, however, validation of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is needed by providing high-quality data obtained from separate test facilities designed with reference to the corresponding reference PMRs. To address this need, a separate effects Plenum-to-Plenum Facility (P2PF) was designed and developed with dual channels and plena for …

Investigation Of Local Velocities And Phase Holdups, And Flow Regimes And Maldistribution Identification In A Trickle Bed Reactor, Mohd Fitri Bin Abdul Rahman

Doctoral Dissertations

"Trickle bed reactors are packed beds of catalyst on which gas and liquid reactants flow concurrently downward. In this work, the experimental work was carried out in 0.14 m diameter Plexiglas column using air-water system flowing over a packed bed of 3 mm glass bead particles. The local liquid and gas velocities, phase saturation and their time series have been investigated for the first time by developing, validating, and implementing a new two-tip optical fiber probe technique. It was found the radially and axially the liquid and gas velocities and their saturation vary and they also vary with times. In …