Hydrogen Sulfide Absorption Phenomena in Brine/Oil Mixtures

Brine and oil absorb hydrogen sulfide (H2S) under pressure in the underground oil reservoir and then undergo a decompression during the extraction process, during which a certain amount of H2S is released from the liquid phase. This paper reports experimental data on how much of the corrosive gas is absorbed into different brine/oil mixtures [0, 33, 66, and 100% water cuts (WCs)]. Different reservoir-simulation scenarios were created at 20 and 70 atm at room temperature. H2S gas concentration was varied as tests were conducted with 50, 100, and 300 ppm in nitrogen. These experiments took place in an autoclave system that simulates the hydrostatic process that occurs inside a reservoir. This paper also reports Henry's law constants for H2S in different WCs. It is found that for all WCs, total pressure plays only a minor role in the absorption phenomena when the initial H2S concentration is increased. In addition, the highest mass-absorption ratios are found at lower H2S concentrations.