Natural gas vaporization in a nanoscale throat connected model of shale: multi-scale, multi-component and multi-phase

摘要: Production of hydrocarbons from shale is a complex process that necessitates the extraction multi-component trapped in multi-scale nanopores. While advances nanofluidics have allowed researchers to probe thermodynamics and transport single, discrete nanochannels, these studies present highly simplified version reservoirs with homogeneous pore structures and/or single-component fluid compositions. In this study, we develop apply 30 000-pore nanomodel captures inherent heterogeneity reservoir sizes (100 nm pores gated by 5 nm-pores) study vaporization representative natural gas hydrocarbon mixture. The matches major North American formations volumetric number contributions sizes, porosity (10.5%), ultra-low permeability (44 nD). Combined experimental analytical results show 3000× slower owing nanoscale throat bottlenecks. At low temperatures, mixture effects reduce rates further stochastic light components large dominating. Collectively approach coupled complexity multicomponent, multiphase fluids multiscale geometries resource.