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Professor SEAN RIGBY's Outputs (43)

In-situ Microwave-assisted Catalytic Upgrading of Heavy Oil: Experimental Validation and Effect of Catalyst Pore Structure on Activity (2020)
Journal Article
Adam, M., Anbari, H., Hart, A., Wood, J., Robinson, J. P., & Rigby, S. P. (2021). In-situ Microwave-assisted Catalytic Upgrading of Heavy Oil: Experimental Validation and Effect of Catalyst Pore Structure on Activity. Chemical Engineering Journal, 413, Article 127420. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2020.127420

In-situ combustion alone may not provide sufficient heating for downhole, catalytic upgrading of heavy oil in the Toe-to-Heel Air Injection (THAI) process. In this study, a new microwave heating technique has been proposed as a strategy to provide th... Read More about In-situ Microwave-assisted Catalytic Upgrading of Heavy Oil: Experimental Validation and Effect of Catalyst Pore Structure on Activity.

Predicting Surface Diffusivities of Gas Molecules in Shale (2020)
Journal Article
Spanakos, D., & Rigby, S. P. (2020). Predicting Surface Diffusivities of Gas Molecules in Shale. Energy and Fuels, 34(10), 12417-12428. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.0c02441

Carbon dioxide injection can be utilized as a means of both enhancing gas recovery from shales and sequestering carbon and thereby simultaneously addressing the growing worldwide gas demand, as well as the challenge of greenhouse gas emissions. Great... Read More about Predicting Surface Diffusivities of Gas Molecules in Shale.

Hyperpolarised xenon MRI and time-resolved X-ray computed tomography studies of structure-transport relationships in hierarchical porous media (2020)
Journal Article
Hill-Casey, F., Hotchkiss, T., Hardstone, K. A., Hitchcock, I., Novak, V., Schlepütz, C. M., Meersmann, T., Pavlovskaya, G. E., & Rigby, S. P. (2021). Hyperpolarised xenon MRI and time-resolved X-ray computed tomography studies of structure-transport relationships in hierarchical porous media. Chemical Engineering Journal, 405, Article 126750. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2020.126750

© 2020 Elsevier B.V. Catalysed diesel particulate filter (DPF) monoliths are hierarchical porous solids, as demonstrated by mercury porosimetry. Establishing structure-transport relationships, including assessing the general accessibility of the cata... Read More about Hyperpolarised xenon MRI and time-resolved X-ray computed tomography studies of structure-transport relationships in hierarchical porous media.

Structural and chemical heterogeneity in ancient glass probed using gas overcondensation, X-ray tomography, and solid-state NMR (2020)
Journal Article
Rigby, S. P., Stevens, L., Meersmann, T., Pavlovskaya, G. E., Rees, G. J., Henderson, J., Bryant, S. J., Edler, K. J., & Fletcher, R. S. (2020). Structural and chemical heterogeneity in ancient glass probed using gas overcondensation, X-ray tomography, and solid-state NMR. Materials Characterization, 167, Article 110467. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matchar.2020.110467

Rare ancient glasses have complex, multi-scale structures requiring more sophisticated and non-destructive pore characterisation techniques than usual. Homotattic patch models for nitrogen adsorption gave better fits to the isotherm data, more accura... Read More about Structural and chemical heterogeneity in ancient glass probed using gas overcondensation, X-ray tomography, and solid-state NMR.

Pore structural evolution of shale following thermochemical treatment (2019)
Journal Article
Rigby, S. P., Jahan, H., Stevens, L., Uguna, C., Snape, C., Macnaughton, B., Large, D. J., & Fletcher, R. S. (2020). Pore structural evolution of shale following thermochemical treatment. Marine and Petroleum Geology, 112, Article 104058. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2019.104058

Shales experience heat treatment concurrent with the presence of water or steam during reservoir engineering interventions, such as high pressure water fracking and in-situ combustion of hydrocarbons. This work utilises a novel technique, which is a... Read More about Pore structural evolution of shale following thermochemical treatment.

New perspectives on supercritical methane adsorption in shales and associated thermodynamics (2019)
Journal Article
Tang, X., Ripepi, N., Rigby, S., Mokaya, R., & Gilliland, E. (2019). New perspectives on supercritical methane adsorption in shales and associated thermodynamics. Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, 78, 186-197. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jiec.2019.06.015

Understanding methane adsorption behavior in shales is fundamental for optimizing shale gas development as the adsorbed methane is a large portion of the subsurface shale gas resource. However, the adsorption mechanism of supercritical methane in sha... Read More about New perspectives on supercritical methane adsorption in shales and associated thermodynamics.

Numerical simulation of the impact of geological heterogeneity on performance and safety of THAI heavy oil production process (2018)
Journal Article
Ado, M. R., Greaves, M., & Rigby, S. P. (2019). Numerical simulation of the impact of geological heterogeneity on performance and safety of THAI heavy oil production process. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, 173, 1130-1148. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2018.10.087

The Toe-to-Heel Air Injection (THAI) in-situ combustion process is an efficient way to extract heavy oil and bitumen. However, such reservoirs are often geologically heterogeneous. This work studied the impact of a range of different geological heter... Read More about Numerical simulation of the impact of geological heterogeneity on performance and safety of THAI heavy oil production process.

Microwave synthesis of carbon onions in fractal aggregates using heavy oil as a precursor (2018)
Journal Article
Adam, M., Hart, A., Stevens, L. A., Wood, J., Robinson, J. P., & Rigby, S. P. (2018). Microwave synthesis of carbon onions in fractal aggregates using heavy oil as a precursor. Carbon, 138, 427-435. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carbon.2018.07.066

In this work we report a method for preparing carbon onions through microwave heating of heavy oil. It was shown that microwave heating of heavy oil mixed with a carbon catalyst at 300 W leads to the growth of a several-centimetre long fractal carbon... Read More about Microwave synthesis of carbon onions in fractal aggregates using heavy oil as a precursor.

Fluid flow in a porous medium with transverse permeability discontinuity (2018)
Journal Article
Pavlovskaya, G. E., Meersmann, T., Jin, C., & Rigby, S. P. (2018). Fluid flow in a porous medium with transverse permeability discontinuity. Physical Review Fluids, 3(4), https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.3.044102

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) velocimetry methods were used to study fully developed axially symmetric fluid flow in a model porous medium of cylindrical symmetry with a transverse permeability discontinuity. Spatial mapping of fluid ow resulted i... Read More about Fluid flow in a porous medium with transverse permeability discontinuity.

Impact of oil composition on microwave heating behavior of heavy oils (2018)
Journal Article
Zhang, Y., Adam, M., Hart, A., Wood, J., Rigby, S. P., & Robinson, J. P. (in press). Impact of oil composition on microwave heating behavior of heavy oils. Energy and Fuels, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.7b03675

Electromagnetic heating techniques have recently received significant attention as alternatives to conventional heating methods for thermal processing of viscous and heavy oils. One of the benefits of electromagnetic heating is that the electromagnet... Read More about Impact of oil composition on microwave heating behavior of heavy oils.

Determination of pore network accessibility in hierarchical porous solids (2017)
Journal Article
Rigby, S. P., Hasan, M., Stevens, L., Williams, H. E., & Fletcher, R. S. (2017). Determination of pore network accessibility in hierarchical porous solids. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 56(50), 14822-14831. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.7b04659

This paper validates the hypothesis that the supposedly non-specific adsorbates nitrogen and argon wet heavy metals differently, and shows how this unexpected effect can be actively utilised to deliver information on pore inter-connectivity. To explo... Read More about Determination of pore network accessibility in hierarchical porous solids.

Dynamic simulation of the THAI heavy oil recovery process (2017)
Journal Article
Rabiu Ado, M., Greaves, M., & Rigby, S. P. (2017). Dynamic simulation of the THAI heavy oil recovery process. Energy and Fuels, 31(2), 1276-1284. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.6b02559

Toe-to-Heel Air Injection (THAI) is a variant of conventional In-Situ Combustion (ISC) that uses a horizontal production well to recover mobilised partially upgraded heavy oil. It has a number of advantages over other heavy oil recovery techniques su... Read More about Dynamic simulation of the THAI heavy oil recovery process.

Detection of the delayed condensation effect and determination of its impact on the accuracy of gas adsorption pore size distributions (2016)
Journal Article
Rigby, S. P., Husan, M., Hitchcock, I., & Fletcher, R. S. (2017). Detection of the delayed condensation effect and determination of its impact on the accuracy of gas adsorption pore size distributions. Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 517, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.colsurfa.2016.12.043

Macroscopic, highly disordered, mesoporous materials present a continuing challenge for accurate pore structure characterization. The typical macroscopic variation in local average pore space descriptors means that methods capable of delivering stati... Read More about Detection of the delayed condensation effect and determination of its impact on the accuracy of gas adsorption pore size distributions.

Pore Structural Characterization of Fuel Cell Layers Using Integrated Mercury Porosimetry and Computerized X-ray Tomography (2016)
Journal Article
Malik, S., Smith, L., Sharman, J., Holt, E. M., & Rigby, S. P. (2016). Pore Structural Characterization of Fuel Cell Layers Using Integrated Mercury Porosimetry and Computerized X-ray Tomography. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 55(41), 10850-10859. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.6b01617

The pore structure of the cathode catalyst layer of proton-exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells is a major factor influencing cell performance. The nanostructure of the catalyst layer has been probed using a novel combination of mercury porosimetry wit... Read More about Pore Structural Characterization of Fuel Cell Layers Using Integrated Mercury Porosimetry and Computerized X-ray Tomography.

Techniques for direct experimental evaluation of structure–transport relationships in disordered porous solids (2016)
Journal Article
Nepryahin, A., Fletcher, R. S., Holt, E. M., & Rigby, S. P. (2016). Techniques for direct experimental evaluation of structure–transport relationships in disordered porous solids. Adsorption, 22(7), 993-1000. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10450-016-9806-9

Determining structure-transport relationships is critical to optimising the activity and selectivity performance of porous pellets acting as heterogeneous catalysts for diffusion-limited reactions. For amorphous porous systems determining the impact... Read More about Techniques for direct experimental evaluation of structure–transport relationships in disordered porous solids.

Structure-transport relationships in disordered solids using integrated rate of gas sorption and mercury porosimetry (2016)
Journal Article
Nepryahin, A., Holt, E. M., Fletcher, R. S., & Rigby, S. P. (2016). Structure-transport relationships in disordered solids using integrated rate of gas sorption and mercury porosimetry. Chemical Engineering Science, 152, 663-673. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2016.06.057

This work describes a new experimental approach that delivers novel information on structure-transport relationships in disordered porous pellets. Integrated rate of adsorption and mercury porosimetry experiments have been used to probe the relative... Read More about Structure-transport relationships in disordered solids using integrated rate of gas sorption and mercury porosimetry.

Molecular hydrogen and catalytic combustion in the production of hyperpolarized 83Kr and 129Xe MRI contrast agents (2016)
Journal Article
Rogers, N. J., Hill-Casey, F., Stupic, K. F., Six, J. S., Lesbats, C., Rigby, S. P., Fraissard, J., Pavlovskaya, G. E., & Meersmann, T. (2016). Molecular hydrogen and catalytic combustion in the production of hyperpolarized 83Kr and 129Xe MRI contrast agents. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(12), 3164-3168. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1600379113

Hyperpolarized (hp) 83Kr is a promising MRI contrast agent for the diagnosis of pulmonary diseases affecting the surface of the respiratory zone. However, the distinct physical properties of 83Kr that enable unique MRI contrast also complicate the pr... Read More about Molecular hydrogen and catalytic combustion in the production of hyperpolarized 83Kr and 129Xe MRI contrast agents.

Statistics of highly heterogeneous flow fields confined to three-dimensional random porous media (2016)
Journal Article
Jin, C., Langston, P. A., Pavlovskaya, G. E., Hall, M. R., & Rigby, S. P. (2016). Statistics of highly heterogeneous flow fields confined to three-dimensional random porous media. Physical Review E, 93(1), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.93.013122

© 2016 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and t... Read More about Statistics of highly heterogeneous flow fields confined to three-dimensional random porous media.

Insights into the influence of the cooling profile on the reconstitution times of amorphous lyophilized protein formulations (2015)
Journal Article
Beech, K. E., Biddlecombe, J. G., van der Walle, C. F., Stevens, L. A., Rigby, S. P., Burley, J. C., Allen, S., Burley, J. C., & Allena, S. (2015). Insights into the influence of the cooling profile on the reconstitution times of amorphous lyophilized protein formulations. European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics, 96, 247-254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpb.2015.07.029

Lyophilized protein formulations must be reconstituted back into solution prior to patient administration and in this regard long reconstitution times are not ideal. The factors that govern reconstitution time remain poorly understood. The aim of thi... Read More about Insights into the influence of the cooling profile on the reconstitution times of amorphous lyophilized protein formulations.