QS Energy Inc (QSEP)

[earth1]

Hi Zeroedin,
Some comments on your questions are below.

The conformational change induced by AOT eventually dissipates entirely and the oil returns to normal

Tao’s January paper shows that the main effect persists for some 11-26 hours but then dissipates fully.
“the electric-field-treated crude oil will eventually have its viscosity returned to the original value.”
Ref - http://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.91.012304

The nano-particles that were clumped together slowly separate and return to the original state before AOT. The oil is entirely unchanged by time it had s been sitting the reservoir at the end of the pipeline for say 24 hours.

It’s enormously better than DRA’s because it requires not post-treatment of any kind, whereas DRA’s have to be refined out, a time consuming and expensive process.

Rather than being a problem this is brilliant it is merely an aggregation of particles which return after time to their random dissociated state.

AOT won’t change the density of oil
Your question about whether AOT “changes the volume of the oil”. This effectively is asking if AOT changes the density of the oil (mass per unit volume).
• The density of a given type of liquid, for a given temperature, is fixed. That’s our starting point.
• This can shift a tiny amount under very high pressure, but for all practical purposes, the density of a liquid doesn’t change under different pressures. Liquids are effectively incompressible.
• In any case, your question here is around whether AOT changes density not about the effect of pressure changes.
• Liquids can change in density if your change temperature.
• However, AOT does not make any material difference to temperature. The RMOTC experiments were definitive in that regard. Temperature will change along the pipeline but that is nothing to do with AOT.
• We aren’t in any way changing the types of molecules in the liquid they are 100% fixed.
• Simply AOT rearranges the nano-particles within the oil base so they group together rather than being physically separate in the same fluid. This will have no effect on the molecules that comprise the nano-particles, nor on the volume that an individual particle occupies. Rather they are simply placed adjacent to each other.
• Overall this will have no effect on the density of the fluid.
The way AOT creates its beneficial effects are not simple, however one thing it does not involve is any material change in density. So basically, density is an aspect that can be considered a constant with regard to AOT specifically so it’s something we don’t need to worry about or put into equations.

AOT improving flow rate
Response in 2 parts below

1 January paper shows AOT improved flow in Daqing test
Most of the data so far has focused on reducing friction head loss per mile, as that is the key driver of energy costs. This has been done at RMOTC by keeping flow rate constant and measuring to identify reduced head loss.
However in the Daqing test summarized at
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7c6wifbpq97x8tl/AOT%20turbulence%20suppression%20feature%20greatly%20expands%20potential%20market%20for%20AOT.pdf?dl=0

There is a chart, updated in both the article and as a direct link here, of Flow Rate vs Pressure applied
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9rh36y47o65sg4k/Daqing%20test%20showing%20AOT%20increases%20flow%20rate%20for%20a%20given%20applied%20pressure.jpg?dl=0

See the prominent green arrow – That shows the increase in flow rate that AOT creates.
There is little background information on this so it’s better if we don’t start trying to guess what the exact configuration of the pipeline was. Nonetheless the chart clearly shows that AOT increases flow rate over “AOT off” for the same applied pressure at the pump station.

Improving flow rate part 2
Generally there has been extensive evidence that AOT reduces friction head loss and as a result power consumption. It means you can have the same flow for much less power. This much is very clear. The other obvious implication from this is that you have the option to increase power, from the much reduced AOT consumption level, to effect an increase in flow. This is by definition possible because your pumps are working much less than before and have some headroom where they can be ramped back up. For example assume you did this for a full pipeline and cut power use on all pumps by say 30% for the same flow, you might elect to increase the pumps back up by half of the reduction. So you allocate half the benefits towards power savings and half to increased flow.

To me if you are interest in increased flow then the only really sensible approach that isn't half baked is to fit out the whole pipeline. Conversely if you only want to address bottlenecks where there is excessive head loss occurring and thus high power consumption, then you might just deploy AOT to certain pump stations. However by doing this you would be fixing a localised problem in one segment of a pipeline, but not strategically addressing the pipeline as whole and optimising power use and flow rate along the entire length of the pipeline.

On the broader topic of head loss and flow rate for entire pipelines that is being discussed

We have some broader discussions around head loss and flow rate regarding entire pipelines. I don’t think we should rely too much on this for these discussions for the purpose of trying to understand the mechanism of how to increase flow along an entire pipeline. This is because for the Daqing test the paper doesn’t tell us too much about pipe layout.