9Shale gas is an unconventional source of energy, which has attracted a lot of attention during the 10 last years. Kerogen is a prime constituent of shale formations and plays a crucial role in shale gas 11 technology. Significant experimental effort in the study of shales and kerogen has produced a 12 broad diversity of experimentally determined structural and thermodynamic properties even for 13 samples of the same well. Moreover, proposed methods reported in the literature for constructing 14 realistic bulk kerogen configurations have not been thoroughly investigated. One of the most 15 important characteristics of kerogens is their porosity due to its direct connection with their 16 transport properties and its potential as discriminating and classifying metric between samples. In 17 this study, Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations are used to study the porosity of model 18 2 kerogens. The porosity is controlled effectively with systematic variation of the number and the 1 size of dummy LJ particles that are used during the construction of system's configuration. The 2 porosity of each sample is characterized with a newly proposed algorithm for analyzing the free 3 space of amorphous materials. It is found that with moderately sized configurations, it is possible 4 to construct percolated pores of interest in shale gas industry. 5

The properties of higher n-alkanes and their mixtures is a topic of significant interest for the oil and chemical industry. However, the experimental data at high temperatures are scarce. The present study focuses on simulating n-dodecane, n-octacosane, their binary mixture at a n-dodecane mole fraction of 0.3, and a model mixture of the commercially available hydrocarbon wax SX-70 to evaluate the performance of several force fields on the reproduction of properties such as liquid densities, surface tension, and viscosities. Molecular dynamics simulations over a broad temperature range from 323.15 to 573.15 K were employed in examining a broad set of atomistic molecular models assessed for the reproduction of experimental data. The well-established united atom TraPPE (TraPPE-UA) was compared against the all atom optimized potentials for liquid simulations (OPLS) reparametrization for long n-alkanes, L-OPLS, as well as Lipid14 and MARTINI force fields. All models qualitatively reproduce the temperature dependence of the aforementioned properties, but TraPPE-UA was found to reproduce liquid densities most accurately and consistently over the entire temperature range. TraPPE-UA and MARTINI were very successful in reproducing surface tensions, and L-OPLS was found to be the most accurate in reproducing the measured viscosities as compared to the other models. Our simulations show that these widely used force fields originating from the world of biomolecular simulations are suitable candidates in the study of n-alkane properties, both in the pure and mixture states.

Kerogen is a micro-porous amorphous solid, which consist the major component of the organic matter scattered in the potentially lucrative shale formations hosting shale gas. Deeper understanding of the way kerogen porosity characteristics affect the transport properties of hosted gas is important for the optimal design of the extraction process. In this work, we employ molecular simulation techniques in order to investigate the role of porosity on the adsorption and transport behavior of shale gas in overmature type II kerogen found at many currently productive shales. To account for the wide range of porosity characteristics present in the real system, a large set of 60 kerogen structures that exhibit a diverse set of void space attributes was used. Grand Canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) simulations were performed for the study of the adsorption of CH4, C2H6, n-C4H10 and CO2 at 298.15 K and 398.15 K and a variety of 2 pressures. The amount adsorbed is found to correlate linearly with the porosity of the kerogen. Furthermore, the adsorption of a quaternary mixture of CH4, C2H6, CO2 and N2 was investigated in the same conditions, indicating that the composition resembling that of the shale gas is achieved under higher temperature and pressure values, i.e. conditions closer to these prevailing in the hosting shale field. The diffusion of CH4, C2H6 and CO2, both as pure components and as components of the quaternary mixture, was investigated using equilibrium Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations at temperatures of 298.15 and 398.15 K and pressures of 1 and 250 atm. In addition to the effect of temperature and pressure, the importance of limiting pore diameter (LPD), maximum pore diameter (MPD), accessible volume (Vacc) and accessible surface (Sacc) on the observed adsorbed amount and diffusion coefficient was revealed by qualitative relationships. The diffusion across the models was found to be anisotropic and the maximum component of the diffusion coefficient to correlate linearly with LPD, indicating that the controlling step of the transport process is the crossing of the limiting pore region. Finally, the transport behavior of the pure compounds was compared with their transport properties when in mixture and it was found that the diffusion coefficient of each compound in the mixture is similar to the corresponding one in pure. This observation agrees with earlier studies in different kerogen models comprising wider pores that have revealed negligible cross-correlation Onsager coefficients.

The adsorption behavior inside kaolinite mesopores of aqueous solutions of various salts and additives is investigated using Molecular Dynamics simulations. In particular, we examine the various combinations of water + salt, water + additive, and water + salt + additive mixtures, where the salts examined are NaCl, CsCl, SrCl2 and RaCl2 and the additives are methanol and citric acid.Citric acid is modeled in two forms, namely fully protonated (H3A) and fully deprotonated (A 3-), the latter being prevalent in neutral pH conditions, in accordance with the kaolinite structure employed. The force fields used for the individual system components include CLAYFF for the kaolinite mesopores, SPC/E for water, parameters optimized for the SPC/E water model based on hydration free energies (HFE) for ions and general Amber force field (GAFF) for the additives.The spatial distributions along the kaolinite pore are delineated and reveal the preferential adsorption behavior of the various species with respect to the gibbsite and siloxane surface, as well as the effect on this behavior of the interactions between the various species. Furthermore, we examine the hydrogen bonds formed between the kaolinite surfaces and water molecules as well as the additives. For the case of citric acid, which tends to aggregate, a cluster analysis is also carried out, in order to examine the effect of the various ions on the cluster formation. Finally, through the calculation of lateral diffusion coefficients and mean residence times, we provide insights on the mobility of the various species inside the kaolinite mesopores.

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In this study, we demonstrate the ability of polarization-difference Raman spectroscopy (PDRS) to detect dissolved free water molecules in a n-octacosane (n-CH) liquid-rich phase, and thus to determine its solubility, at temperatures and pressures relevant to the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. Our results for the pure alkane reveal thermal decomposition above a temperature of 500 K as well as an increase of gauche conformers of the alkane chains with an increase in temperature. For binary homogeneous mixtures, raw spectra obtained from two different polarization scattering geometries did not show a relevant signal in the OH stretching frequency range. In contrast, isotropic spectra obtained from the PDRS technique reveal a narrow and tiny peak associated with the dangling OH bonds. Over the complete range of temperatures and pressures, no signature of hydrogen-bonded water molecules was observed in the isotropic Raman scattering intensities. A thorough investigation covering a large range of temperatures and pressures using PDRS signals showed that the higher the fraction of gauche conformers of hydrocarbon, the higher the solubility of water. The proportion of gauche and trans conformers was found to be water-concentration-independent, and the intensity of the OH-dangling peak increased linearly with increasing the vapor partial pressure of water. Therefore, we established a relation between a relevant intensity ratio and the concentration of water obtained from SAFT calculations. Contrary to the results from relevant literature, the calibration factor was found to be temperature-independent between 424 and 572 K. The isotropic Raman scattering intensities are corrected in order to provide a better representation of the vibrational density of states. The influence of correction of the isotropic scattering intensities on the solubility measurements as well as on the analysis of the molecular arrangement is discussed.

The transport properties of wax and water mixtures under confinement and particularly inside catalyst nanopores is a topic of significant interest for the petrochemical industry. These mixtures are the products of the Gas-To-Liquids (GTL) process through the Fischer−Tropsch (FT) route, which experienced an increasing number of commercially viable applications over the past decades. Under reaction conditions, water is produced in high concentrations, leading to phase segregation inside the catalyst nanopores and water-assisted sintering of catalytic nanoparticles, reducing catalyst lifetime and increasing GTL operational cost. It is thus important to understand the wax−water liquid−liquid equilibrium (LLE) at reaction conditions, as it determines the maximum allowable amount of water in the FT wax. Furthermore, elucidating the phase behavior of wax−water mixture inside the nanopores, by explicit incorporation of wall effects, is essential in revealing the role of confinement on mixture phase behavior. The present study focuses on simulating the phase behavior of the n-octacosane (n-C 28 )−water mixture inside TiO 2 nanopores. Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations with realistic molecular models were employed, highlighting the importance of confinement on the mixture transport properties, particularly in the excess water regime. Even though phase segregated mixtures retain their structural properties compared to their bulk counterparts, significant deviations arise in terms of density profiles inside the nanopore. Water molecules organize into two discrete layers on the TiO 2 surface, shielding n-C 28 from the nanopore walls. Octacosane's self-diffusion is not influenced by confinement; water on the other hand is severely hindered by the TiO 2 nanopore surface, with its diffusivity bearing a strong dependence on the distance from the nanopore center.