Numerical Simulation of Oil Shale Retorting Optimization under In Situ Microwave Heating Considering Electromagnetics, Heat Transfer, and Chemical Reactions Coupling

Hao Wang, Jianzheng Su, Jingyi Zhu (), Zhaozhong Yang, Xianglong Meng, Xiaogang Li, Jie Zhou and Liangping Yi
Additional contact information
Hao Wang: State Key Laboratory of Shale Oil and Gas Enrichment Mechanisms and Effective Development, Beijing 100083, China
Jianzheng Su: State Key Laboratory of Shale Oil and Gas Enrichment Mechanisms and Effective Development, Beijing 100083, China
Jingyi Zhu: State Key Laboratory of Shale Oil and Gas Enrichment Mechanisms and Effective Development, Beijing 100083, China
Zhaozhong Yang: Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500, China
Xianglong Meng: State Key Laboratory of Shale Oil and Gas Enrichment Mechanisms and Effective Development, Beijing 100083, China
Xiaogang Li: Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500, China
Jie Zhou: Institute of Applied Electromagnetics, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610500, China
Liangping Yi: Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500, China

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 16, 1-14

Abstract: Oil shale constitutes an important proportion of unconventional resources, and its efficient exploitation helps alleviate the Chinese oil shortage situation. Nowadays, microwave heating is a promising method for in situ development of oil shale. However, the corresponding numerical simulation lacks in guiding the retorting optimization under microwave heating. A novel pseudo three-dimensional model, considering electromagnetics, temperature field, and chemical reactions coupling was developed and implemented to investigate oil shale reservoirs’ retorting performance under microwave heating based on the finite element method (FEM). The effects of microwave power, antenna number, and antenna position were analyzed creatively to optimize the microwave heating parameters. Numerical results showed high microwave power increased the maximum reservoir temperature quickly near the heating well, but the thermal conductivity of oil shale dominated the temperature of distal formation. For a typical case of two antennas at 0.9 m spacing and 500 W, the maximum temperature can reach 443 °C at 100 days, and the kerogen near the wellbore quickly converts to hydrocarbon products. Moreover, increasing antennas can improve the heating rate, and the specific distance between two antennas should be designed based on the microwave power and oil shale properties.

Keywords: oil shale retorting; in situ exploitation; microwave heating; multiphysics coupling; antenna design optimization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/16/5788/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/16/5788/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:16:p:5788-:d:884199

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().