Nigerian bituminous tar sands are among the world's largest deposits of bitumen and heavy oil. They are estimated to contain 38-40 billion barrels of heavy oil and bitumen, spanning approximately 120 km in length and 4-6 km in breadth. With global commitments to net zero emissions and various energy transition plans, improvements in the recovery methods for heavy oil and bitumen are being sought. To address this, renewable energy electrothermal enhanced oil recovery is considered an eco-friendly alternative. In our study, we introduce a novel Reservoir-Waveguide-Debye model. This model explores the enhancement of penetration for radio-frequency electromagnetic (EM) waves, which can be generated from renewable energy sources. These waves facilitate the viscosity reduction of heavy oil and bitumen. Through a comprehensive 2D numerical simulation employing the bulk properties of bituminous tar sands, we assess the propagation of EM fields within porous media. We utilize the industrial heating radio-frequency bandwidth of 1-60 MHz to conduct frequency domain investigations. Our analysis delves into propagation modes using eigenfrequency analysis, pinpointing the EM resonance of the tar sands. Furthermore, we investigate the impact of mesh refinement on the EM eigenfrequencies of porous media at both the microscale (400 μm) and macroscale (100 m in radial distance). Our results demonstrate the occurrence of resonance phenomena at complex eigenfrequencies around 27.12 and 54.24 MHz in both the microscale and macroscale models of the bituminous sands. This breakthrough research offers promising insights into harnessing renewable energy-driven EM waves for efficient thermal recovery processes in the Nigerian bituminous tar sands, thus fostering sustainable and eco-friendly energy solutions.
© 2024 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.