Environment, Mining, Oil & Gas
• Studying in situ phase transformations in geological samples under extremes of temperature and pressure.
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• Evaluating the performance and ageing of materials (e.g. metals and polymers) used for the storage and transport of petroleum
and petrochemical products.
• Studying the structure and composition of meteorites and interplanetary dust.
• Mineral and rock microstructural analysis to help evaluate
new mining opportunities and assess natural oil and gas reservoirs.
• Assessing environmental contamination, including identifying
extremely low concentrations of elements associated with the petrochemical and mining industries.
• Real-time imaging of water flow in geomaterials, in concrete and for cooling applications in the nuclear industry.
•Characterising zeolites to improve oil catalytic cracking.
• Phase and structure mapping of concrete mixtures during in situ
wetting.
• Studying emulsions to improve oil transport.
• Analysis of trace elements in petroleum and petrochemical products.
• Characterising rock fossils to improve the extraction of fossil fuels.
• Elemental and speciation analysis of crude oil.
• Chemical characterisation to improve waste management.
• Analysis of major components with <1% uncertainty and trace elements at parts-per-billion concentrations.
EXAMPLE
Kerogen
Large reserves of natural gas are held within an organic material called kerogen. Currently the gas can be extracted by hydraulic fracturing, but this is a controversial extraction technique. An international group of scientists studied different kerogen samples using X-ray scattering techniques. This allowed the scientists to develop molecular models of kerogen. These findings could open doors to improved extraction technologies.
EXAMPLE
Digital Rock Analysis
Digital Rock Analysis is a technique for extracting nanometre- to centimetre-scale geological and petrophysical information from digitised rock samples. Researchers from a company specialising in digital rock analysis used X-ray nano-tomography to scan rock samples at a 280 nanometre voxel size. The acquired images provided a level of detail that cannot be achieved using lab-based CT, and can be used to create 3D rock models that predict rock properties with a high degree of confidence.
EXAMPLE
Neutron Diffraction
In its quest to reduce CO2 emissions from aluminium production, a leading global mining group used neutron diffraction to observe the interactions of minerals and molten salts at high temperature (>800°C) over several hours. The industrial engineers are using the results to optimise their process parameters.