Several new co-workers have started in CERE during the summer.
Christine Malmros
Christine Malmros is PhD student from August 2011 in the 'Biotechnology in Oil Recovery' (BioRec) project supported by The Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation.
A combination of water and small hydrocarbons at high pressures and low temperatures provides conditions for formation of gas hydrates. Gas hydrates are a problem to the oil and gas industry as they can block pipelines causing loss of production. Therefore there is great economic incentive to find suitable inhibitors. Different inhibitors are presently used but they suffer with problems as toxicity, flammability, low biodegradability and high costs.
Christine´s project is 'Gas Hydrate Inhibition with Ice-Structuring Proteins' where the object is to understand how ice-structuring proteins prevent or delay the formation of gas hydrates. Ice-structuring proteins are produced by certain animals, plants, fungi and bacteria living in cold climates that are able to survive even though their internal temperature is far below the freezing point of their cell fluids and blood. Recently studies have shown that ice-structuring proteins may hold a promising potential to work as a low-dosage hydrate inhibitor while at the same time being environmentally benign.
The goal of her project is to investigate if ice-structuring proteins can be applied in field applications to control the formation of gas hydrates. The project will primarily be based on experimental work.
Christine will have her office in room 262 and is supervised by Nicolas von Solms.
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Alsu Khusainova
During her MSc course, which was MSc in Petroleum Geochemistry, Alsu got interested in the issues associated with the expiration of the oil reserves. Particularly her MSc thesis was focused on investigation of the structure of asphaltenes, which are nowadays considered as an additional hydrocarbon source. The subject of Enhanced Oil Recovery is interesting to her. Alsu believe cost-effective and environmentally friendly biotechnological EOR techniques are as important as challenging for the future reservoir development. This makes her really motivated to carry out research in this field.
At the DTU Alsu is working on a position of a PhD student. Her research is focused on 'Enhanced Oil Recovery with application of Enzymes' that is the part of the large-scale BioRec project, evaluated under the The Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation. The work implies cooperation with the oil industries, such as Maersk Oil, Dong Energy and Danish Technological Institute, as well as with the biotechnological company, such as Novozymes. Collaboration with petroleum and biotechnology corporations has a great potential, therefore development of new biotechnologies that consequently might be applied within Danish oil fields is expected as an overall result of the BioRec project.
Enzymes are quite well-known biological agents and have been applied previously in petroleum industry. However, only recently they have been introduced into the field of enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Although initially reported results of the application of enzymes for EOR are quite positive and promising, working mechanisms are poorly known and understood. The main goal of Alsu´s work is to establish possible mechanisms in which enzymes may enhance oil recovery. The experiments will be focused on wettability and IFT alterations and investigation of changes in oil composition under the influence of enzymes; set of dynamic tests (e.g. core displacement tests) are also going to be carried out in the framework of her project. |
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