Water Content of Light n-Alkanes: New Measurements and Cubic-Plus-Association Equation of State Modeling

Light hydrocarbon gases such as methane, ethane, propane, and butane or other so called gaseous solvents have been suggested as steam additives to improve bitumen recovery and energy efficiency. The water content of these gases is one of the key requirements in the simulation and design of solvent- aided thermal heavy oil recovery processes. In this work, we present new experimental data for the water content of these gases at high temperatures (up to 493.15 K) and moderate pressures (P < 6 MPa). The experimental data was regenerated using the cubic-plus-association equation of state. The Soave-Redlich-Kwong equation of state is used to treat the physical interactions. The association interactions are captured using Wertheim's first-order thermodynamic perturbation theory. A set of binary interaction parameters is proposed to calculate the water content of methane, ethane, propane, and n-butane at the operating conditions of the thermal heavy oil and bitumen recovery processes. VC 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 63: 1384-1389, 2017