Simulation experiments for evolution of fatty acids in immature source rocks

The anhydrous, hydrous and bitumen-extrac- ted simulations were carried out for the immature source rocks from the Liaohe sag. It has been shown from the result that with increasing temperature in simulation experiments, the fatty acids content decreased at first and then increased. The decrease of fatty acids in immature rocks is presumably related to alkanes generation in immature oils, whilst the increase may be related to the fact that some additional fatty acids are generated from kerogen and the tightly bound fatty acids in kerogen are released as bound fatty acids in kerogen and unbound fatty acids in bitumen. The fact that the bitumen generated from kerogen contains fatty acids has demonstrated that some bound and tightly bound fatty acids in kerogen can be transferred into bitumen. The preferential fatty acids in the immature source rocks are found to be mono-carboxylic acids with longer chains, whilst krogen contains relatively more di-carboxylic acids. It has been found that the fatty acids in immature source rocks can be changed from that with more longer chains to that with more shorter chains when evolution extent has been increased. Based on simulation results and the fact that the majority of fatty acids in immature oils are those with longer chains, it is inferred that the contribution of fatty acids to forming alkanes in immature oils mainly takes place at the evolution stage with R₀ <0.6%. The simulation experiments have also demonstrated that H₂O could promote the generation of fatty acids with more di-carboxylic acids and delay alkanes formation from fatty acids.