Industrial Projects

Creating innovation strategies through collaboration with Sargent Centre.

Collaborations with universities can provide huge benefits for companies and assist them in creating innovation strategies. At the Sargent Centre we have a number of industrial projects with major companies. Our research projects are collaborative by nature and tailored to suit company requirements. Below are highlights of the Industrial Projects we are currently working on. 

Through projects with our industrial partners, we endeavour to provide guidance for the direction of technology development. We look at ways we can contribute to the company’s performance and provide recommendations for designs or processes that could enhance competitive advantage. For example, we can: 

  • Examine the possibility of improved/new products
  • Analyse new and more effective manufacturing processes
  • Look into software that can enable greater logistical efficiencies and much more...

At the Sargent Centre, we also have the added advantage as we have the Industrial Consortium. The Industrial Consortium includes multinational companies from various industrial sectors including, gas, oil, pharmaceutical and chemical. Our experience with working with industry has been continuous since we started the Consortium in 1989. The Consortium provides many benefits for member companies including individual assistance and solutions to specific company goals and challenges. The Consortium has also provided Sargent Centre with greater insight into the needs of Industry. If you would like more information on how to collaborate with Sargent Centre, please contact Sargent Centre Director, Professor Claire S. Adjiman at c.adjiman@imperial.ac.uk .

 
 Industrial Projects

Investigators

 QCCSRC Project

QCCSRC Project

QCCSRC is a 10 year, $70m research programme funded by Qatar Petroleum, Shell and Qatar Science and Technology Park.  It is the largest industry-funded research programme at Imperial and aims to provide the underpinning science and engineering to enable the optimised design and operation of large-scale (>1m te pa) carbon dioxide storage operations in carbonate reservoirs typically found in Qatar and other parts of the Middle East (and elsewhere – about 50% of oil and gas reservoirs worldwide are carbonates).  The activity is a close collaboration between the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Earth Science and Engineering and involves the close interplay of experimental and theoretical/numerical modelling research.  Molecular Systems Engineering and Multiscale Modelling are a key part of this activity.

The experimental work involves characterisation of the rocks, the properties of reservoir fluids mixed with supercritical CO2 and the multiphase flow of such fluids in the porous and fractured carbonate rocks.  Particular challenges with carbonates (compared with say sandstone reservoirs found in the North Sea) are that their pore structure is very complex, ranging from nm to mm, and they are reactive to acidic CO2, causing the porous matrix to evolve with time during reactive flow.  Imaging using X-ray micro-tomography and modified body-scanners plays a major role in this.  The modelling work comprises prediction of the thermophysical properties (phase behaviour, interfacial properties, transport properties) of the fluids involved under high temperature-pressure reservoir conditions – Molecular Systems Engineering plays a major role here and is transforming our ability to predict accurately the way complex fluid mixtures behave under such extreme conditions.  These models feed into simulations of multiphase fluid flow in the storage rocks on a wide range of length-scales, from the pore scale (pore network models and Lattice Boltzmann) through core and metre block scales up to the kilometre distances of CO2 plume development at the reservoir scale.  Combined together, the experimental and modelling work in the programme provide an integrated multi-scale approach, linking the molecular and pore length-scales to the behaviour of bulk fluids on reservoir length-scales. Once robust reservoir models are developed, the challenge will be to use systems engineering approaches to aid in the design, optimisation, monitoring and control of these complex operations.

Professor Geoffrey C Maitland
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Sargent Centre Industrial Projects
Summary of the table's contents