Abstract

The development and deployment of a real-time, in situ, non-invasive sensor to monitor the concentration of ${{\rm H}_2}{\rm O}$ during in situ combustion (ISC) experiments with a heavy-crude oil is described. A real-time sensor to monitor the gas-phase products from ISC can support the study of the kinetics of the complex chemical reactive system in ISC. The mole fraction of ${{\rm H}_2}{\rm O}$ was measured using tunable diode laser (TDL) absorption spectroscopy coupled with $1f$-normalized wavelength modulation spectroscopy (WMS) and ${2f}$ detection. The WMS ${2f/1f}$ strategy was used to enhance sensitivity with effective noise rejection, particularly suitable when characterizing the water vapor evolved from oil–water emulsions. ${{\rm H}_2}{\rm O}$ was measured at ${3934.10}\;{{\rm cm}^{- 1}}$ from the fundamental band ${{v}_3}$. That transition was selected using the HITRAN database to increase the line strength and minimize interference from neighbor compounds. Measurements of ${{\rm H}_2}{\rm O}$ concentration were conducted at ambient temperature and pressure using a reference cell (${{\rm H}_2}{\rm O} = {2}\%$ at 98.6 kPa) to validate the sensor architecture under controlled laboratory environments. The TDL sensor was also successfully validated during real ISC experiments involving heavy-crude oil. Validation and combustion experiments showed the potential of the TDL-based sensor for non-invasive, real-time, in situ measurements of gas-phase species in conditions similar to those of laboratory-scale experimental ISC tests.

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