Chemical processing field testing

The goal of this paper Is to present the current status of model validation and field testing of chemical fate and transport models other papers in this symposium discuss the state-of-the-art of modeling specific processes, environments, and multimedia problems. The process of model validation, and its various components, is described considerations in field testing, where model results are compared to field observations, are discussedp an assessment of the current extent of field testing for various processes and media is presented and future field testing and data needs are enumerated. 

Recent research and field tests have focused on the use of relatively low concentrations or volumes of chemicals as additives to other oil recovery processes. Of particular interest is the use of surfactants as CO (184) and steam mobility control agents (foam). Also combinations of older EOR processes such as surfactant enhanced alkaline flooding and alkaline-surfactant-polymer flooding have been the subjects of recent interest. Older technologies polymer flooding (185,186) and micellar flooding (187-189) have been the subject of recent reviews. In 1988 84 commercial products polymers, surfactants, and other additives, were listed as being marketed by 19 companies for various enhanced oil recovery applications (190). 

Chemical enhanced oil recovery processes are now in a period of retrenchment caused mainly by less than successful performance of several field tests. Nearly all of these tests have, to at least some extent, been affected by shortcomings in the reservoir description which compound process complexities and uncertainties. 

In some cases, minimal effort is required for the demulsification process. For example, in field tests, adequate separation of a bitumen emulsion could be achieved without the use of demulsifiers by raising the temperature of the emulsion to 190 T and providing 24 to 48 h of residence time in quiescent storage tanks. However, proper selection of demulsification chemicals is essential when treating the emulsions in conventional equipment on a continuous-flow basis. 

The program involved leaching selected industrial chemical process residuals with leachate derived from municipal refuse in a pilot-scale field facility measuring the concentration of the compounds which leached from the wastes and comparing these field concentrations to those in the EP and other candidate leaching tests. The Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure or TCLP, is the outgrowth of these studies. 

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