Visualization Of Water Vaporization During Electrical Heating Process With X-ray Tomography

This paper deals with the study of electrical heating as a potential method for recovery of heavy oil and bitumen from unconsolidated sand formations of Northern Alberta. Electrical heating is a preferred energy transfer method for heating relatively shallow formations containing bitumen with limited support for high-pressure steam injection. Simulation results demonstrated that although electrical heating can contribute to the recovery of oil, substantially more oil would be recovered if the formation or injected water were allowed to boil. Thus the in-situ steam creation has been the target of simulation and experimental work presented here.