Bitumen-Toluene Mutual Diffusion Coefficients Using Microfluidics

In this paper, we present a microfluidic approach to measure liquid solvent diffusivity in Athabasca bitumen. The method has three distinguishing features: (a) a sharp initial condition enabled by the high wettability of the solvent; (b) one-dimensional diffusive transport (in the absence of convection) ensured by microscale confinement; and (c) visible-light-based measurement enabled by the partial transparency of the bitumen at small scales. The method is applied to measure the diffusion of toluene into bitumen by imaging transmitted light profiles over time, and relating intensities to the mass fractions. Plotting toluene mass fraction versus distance/sqrt(time), results in a tight superposition of all curves (time-dependent mass fractions) demonstrating the diffusion dominated nature of the system and the robustness of the method. The diffusion transport equations were solved and fit to a constant diffusion coefficient as well as a variety of concentration-dependent diffusion coefficient relations found in the literature. For intermediate toluene mass fractions (0.2-0.8), a constant diffusion coefficient of 2.0 X 10(-10) m(2)/s provides an appropriate representation. However, at low toluene mass fractions (<0.2), significantly reduced diffusive transport is observed, and endpoint analysis indicates diffusion coefficients trending toward 4.3 X 10(-11) At high toluene mass fractions (>0.8), the values trend toward 1.5 X 10(-10) m(2)/s. This microfluidic method provides an inexpensive and rapid mutual diffusion coefficient evaluation, with significantly improved spatial/composition resolution vis-a-vis competing measurement methods.