Enhanced Hydrogen-Rich Syngas Production Through In-Situ Heavy Oil Gasification Process Using Nanoscale Nickel Catalyst

With the increasing demand for clean energy, in-situ hydrogen production from hydrocarbon reservoirs has attracted increasing attention. In this work, a nanoscale nickel catalyst was prepared using the water-in-oil (w/o) microemulsion method and applied in the in-situ generation of hydrogen-rich syngas from heavy oil reservoirs. The activation energy (Ea) of the gasification reactions significantly decreased with the addition of the nickel catalyst. The catalytic effect was monitored through remarkable increases in the peak temperature values for both the low-temperature oxidation (LTO) and high-temperature oxidation (HTO) processes, and the two peaks also shifted to lower-temperature regions. Additionally, the catalyst exhibited excellent activity and selectivity during the reaction process, and therefore the highest production rate of hydrogen-rich syngas of 20.07%, combined with the peak hydrogen concentration of 5.00%, was obtained in the presence of the catalyst and water. The substantial rate of hydrogen conversion from heavy oil was calculated to be 397.87 mL/g. The preliminary results obtained in this work show that this method is a significant improvement, and the catalyst-assisted method is believed to have great potential for underground fossil fuel conversion in the future.