Abstract:

Measurement of size of single (in parts methane-saturated) crude oil droplets in a counter-current flow of artificial seawater while pressure is released from 150 bar to atmospheric pressure.

Suggested Citation:

Michael Schlüter, Simeon Pesch. 2017. Expansion of Gas-Saturated Crude Oil Droplets. Distributed by: GRIIDC, Harte Research Institute, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi. doi:10.7266/N79885GB

Publications:

Pesch, S., Jaeger, P., Jaggi, A., Malone, K., Hoffmann, M., Krause, D., … Schlüter, M. (2017). Rise Velocity of Live-Oil Droplets in Deep-Sea Oil Spills. Environmental Engineering Science. doi:10.1089/ees.2017.0319

Gros, J., Arey, J. S., Socolofsky, S. A., & Dissanayake, A. L. (2020). Dynamics of Live Oil Droplets and Natural Gas Bubbles in Deep Water. Environmental Science & Technology. doi:10.1021/acs.est.9b06242

Purpose:

The experiments have been done to investigate the size evolution of single methane-saturated Louisiana Sweet Crude (LSC) oil droplets over time while pressure is decreased according to a drop rise through 1,500 m water column. Outgassing of dissolved methane and its influence on the drop size (normalized by its initial value) and therefore rise behavior is investigated and compared to crude oil droplets that are not gas-saturated.

Data Parameters and Units:

Droplet diameter (mm), Droplet diameter ratio, Temperature (°C), Pressure (MPa), Time (min), Experiment number, Decompression rate (bar min-1), Droplet diameter (dp, mm), Droplet growth factor

Methods:

Photographic image capturing with backlight illumination, evaluation of droplet sizes (equivalent diameter) with the software ImageJ.

Individual Files: