Analysis and Simulation of Steam Distillation Mechanism during the Steam Injection Process

Steam distillation could improve the oil recovery efficiency during the steam injection enhanced oil recovery process. Because of its immense effects on oil recovery, it is important to investigate the main parameters of steam distillation as well as the effects of oil and reservoir properties during this thermal process. In this work, the simulation of batch steam distillation is performed on 18 sets of crude oil found in the literature. The developed model is highly compatible with respect to the input oil properties that can also characterize the oil with minimum entry. The calculated distillates were compared to the experimental data, and the results show an average relative error of 13.74% for 15 sets of crude oil data, each calculated at 20 different points. According to this study, the superheat conditions of steam and the amount of light oil fractions have the greatest effect on the distillation yields, while the steam saturation conditions have less considerable effects. It was also found that th...