Iraqi Journal of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering

The poor hole cleaning efficiency could causes many problems such as high torque, drag, poor hydraulics and pipe stuck. These inherent problems result in an avoidable high operation cost which this study tried to address. In this study, the effect of cutting density on hole cleaning efficiency in deviated and horizontal wells was investigated. Experiments were conducted using 40 feet (12 m) long of flow loop made from iron and PVC. However, the test section was made from PVC with (5.1m) long and (4” ID) for outer pipe and (2” OD) inner pipe. The cutting transport ratio (CTR) was determined from weight measurements for each test. Cutting Transport Ratio has been investigated for effects of the following parameters; flow rate, cutting size and density, yield point of drilling mud, and inclination angle. Once the setup was positioned at the desired inclination, the cutting was transported for 3 minutes at a constant flow rate and yield point. The amount of cutting removed during each test was thereafter weighted to determine cutting transport ratio CTR.
The results obtained from this study showed that the cutting density has a slight to moderate effect on hole cleaning efficiency. Also, there was a remarkable improvement in the cutting transport ratio annular velocity and hole inclination angle was increased. However, the yield point (Yp) was negligible at maximum values of annular velocity. Therefore, at high value of yield point the cuttings with large and medium size were transported more than small size. This case is inversed at a low value of Yp. Moreover, for all sizes the heavy cutting transport less than light cutting. Finally, the critical angle was recorded between 65o-75o. Sigma plot 12.5 program has been used to graph all figures in this paper.

Petrophysical characterization is the most important stage in reservoir management. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate reservoir properties and lithological identification of Nahr Umar Formation in Nasiriya oil field. The available well logs are (sonic, density, neutron, gamma-ray, SP, and resistivity logs). The petrophysical parameters such as the volume of clay, porosity, permeability, water saturation, were computed and interpreted using IP4.4 software. The lithology prediction of Nahr Umar formation was carried out by sonic -density cross plot technique. Nahr Umar Formation was divided into five units based on well logs interpretation and petrophysical Analysis: Nu-1 to Nu-5. The formation lithology is mainly composed of sandstone interlaminated with shale according to the interpretation of density, sonic, and gamma-ray logs. Interpretation of formation lithology and petrophysical parameters shows that Nu-1 is characterized by low shale content with high porosity and low water saturation whereas Nu-2 and Nu-4 consist mainly of high laminated shale with low porosity and permeability. Nu-3 is high porosity and water saturation and Nu-5 consists mainly of limestone layer that represents the water zone.

In this work, a novel biocatalytic process for the production of 7-methylxanthines from theobromine, an economic feedstock has been developed. Bench scale production of 7-methlxanthine has been demonstrated. The biocatalytic process used in this work operates at 30 OC and atmospheric pressure, and is environmentally friendly. The biocatalyst was E. coli BL21(DE3) engineered with ndmB/D genes combinations. These modifications enabled specific N7- demethylation of theobromine to 7-methylxanthine. This production process consists of uniform fermentation conditions with a specific metabolically engineered strain, uniform induction of specific enzymes for 7-methylxanthine production, uniform recovery and preparation of biocatalyst for reaction and uniform recovery of pure 7-methylxanthine.
Many E. coli BL21(DE3) strains metabolically engineered with single and/or multiple ndmB/D genes were tested for catalytic activity, and the best strains which had the higher activity were chosen to carry out the N-demethylation reaction of theobromine. Strain pBD2dDB had the highest activity for the production of 7-methylxanthine from theobromine. That strain was used to find the optimum amount of cells required to achieve complete conversion of theobromine to 7-methylxanthine within two hours. It was found that the optimum concentration of pBD2dDB strain to achieve 100% conversion of 0.5 mM theobromine to 7-methylxanthine was 5 mg/mL. The cell growth of pBD2dDB strain was studied using two different growth media, (Luria-Bertani Broth and Super Broth). Super broth was found to be the best medium to produce the highest amount of cell paste (1.5 g). Subsequently, the process was scaled up in which 2 L reaction volume was used to produce 7-methylxanthine (100% conversion) from 0.5 mM theobromine catalyzed by pBD2dDB strain. The reactions was carried out at 30 oC and 250 rpm shaker speed, and the reaction medium was 50 mM potassium phosphate buffer (pH=7). 7-methylxanthines was separated by preparative chromatography with high recovery, and the product solution was collected, purified by drying at 120-140 oC for 4 hours and, recovered (127 mg). Purity of the isolated 7-methylxanthine was comparable to authentic standards with no contaminant peaks, as observed by HPLC, LC-MS, and NMR.

In this study, the circulating fluidized bed was used to remove the Tetracycline from wastewater utilizing a pistachio shell coated with ZnO nanoparticles. Several parameters including, Tetracycline solution flowrate, initial static bed height, Tetracycline initial concentration and airflow rate were systematically examined to show their effect on the breakthrough curve and the required time to reach the adsorption capacity and thus draw the fully saturated curve of the adsorbent. Results showed that using ZnO nanoparticles will increase the adsorbent surface area and pores and as a result the adsorption increased, also the required time for adsorbent saturation increased and thus the removal efficiency may be achieved at minimum antibiotic flowrate, maximum bed height, higher antibiotic concentration, and higher airflow rate. Also, a minimum fluidization velocity correlation was developed in this study. This correlation was found to be a function of liquid velocity, bed height, particle size, and particle density. The results showed that circulating fluidized bed has a better performance and last more than two hours before the bed biomass exhausted in comparison with traditional fluidized bed.

In the present work studies were carried out to extract a cationic dye (Methylene Blue MB) from an aqueous solution using emulsion liquid membrane process (ELM). The organic phase (membrane phase) consists of Span 80 as emulsifier, sulfuric acid solution as stripping agent and hexane as diluent.
In this study, important factors influencing the extraction of methylene blue dye were studied. These factors include H2SO4 concentration in the stripping phase, agitation speed in the dye permeation stage, Initial dye concentration and diluent type.
More than (98%) of Methylene blue dye was extracted at the following conditions: H2SO4 concentration (1.25) M, agitation speed (200) rpm, dye concentration (10) ppm and the diluent type was hexane.

In the oil industry, the processing of vacuum residue has an important economic and environmental benefit. This work aims to produce industrial petroleum coke with light fuel fractions (gasoline, kerosene , gas oil) as the main product and de asphalted oil (DAO) as a side production from treatment secondary product matter of vacuum residue. Vacuum residue was produced from the bottom of vacuum distillation unit of the crude oil. Experimentally, the study investigated the effect of the thermal conversion process on (vacuum residue) as a raw material at temperature reaches to 500 °C, pressure 20 atm. and residence time for about 3 hours. The first step of this treatment is constructing a carbon steel batch reactor its volume about 700 ml, occupied with auxiliary control devices, joined together with an atmospheric distillation unit. The amounts of light fuel fraction products are 2 vol. % for light gasoline, 4 vol. % for heavy gasoline 17 vol. % for kerosene and 24 vol. % for diesel oil. The second step was the treatment the residue matter from first step, in order to separate the petroleum coke matter from asphaltene matter by solvent deasphalting matter (propane) to prepare de asphalted oil (DAO). The amount of de asphalted oil is about 15 vol. %, leaving asphaltene with impurities to precipitate at the bottom of the reactor and these materials consist of the petroleum coke structure. The petroleum coke separate and calcined at approximately (1000 - 1100) °C, to eliminate the reminder of volatile matter from the industrial coke and reach to commercial property.

This research presents a comparison of performance between recycled single stage and double stage hydrocyclones in separating water from water/kerosene emulsion. The comparison included several factors such as: inlet flow rate (3,5,7,9, and 11 L/min), water feed concentration (5% and 15% by volume), and split ratio (0.1 and 0.9). The comparison extended to include the recycle operation; once and twice recycles. The results showed that increasing flow rate as well as the split ratio enhancing the separation efficiency for the two modes of operation. On the contrary, reducing the feed concentration gave high efficiencies for the modes. The operation with two cycles was more efficient than one cycle. The maximum obtained efficiencies were 97% and 97.5% at 5% concentration, 11 L/min, and 0.9 split ratio for twice recycled single stage and double stage hydrocyclones, respectively. The pressure drop was the same for the two modes of operation. It was concluded that using recycled single stage hydrocyclone was more economical since it reduced the cost of additional hydrocyclone.

Porosity plays an essential role in petroleum engineering. It controls fluid storage in aquifers, connectivity of the pore structure control fluid flow through reservoir formations. To quantify the relationships between porosity, storage, transport and rock properties, however, the pore structure must be measured and quantitatively described. Porosity estimation of digital image utilizing image processing essential for the reservoir rock analysis since the sample 2D porosity briefly described. The regular procedure utilizes the binarization process, which uses the pixel value threshold to convert the color and grayscale images to binary images. The idea is to accommodate the blue regions entirely with pores and transform it to white in resulting binary image. This paper presents the possibilities of using image processing for determining digital 2D rock samples porosity in carbonate reservoir rocks. MATLAB code created which automatically segment and determine the digital rock porosity, based on the OTSU's thresholding algorithm. In this work, twenty-two samples of 2D thin section petrographic image reservoir rocks of one Iraqi oil field are studied. The examples of thin section images are processed and digitized, utilizing MATLAB programming. In the present study, we have focused on determining of micro and macroporosity of the digital image. Also, some pore void characteristics, such as area and perimeter, were calculated. Digital 2D image analysis results are compared to laboratory core investigation results to determine the strength and restrictions of the digital image interpretation techniques. Thin microscopic image porosity determined using OTSU technique showed a moderate match with core porosity.