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A team of Ryerson faculty and students led by professor Ziad Saghir will be closely watching the progress of their outer space experiment this month at the European Space Station. The team is looking to space to provide answers on how to better predict the presence and extent of oil beneath the earth’s surface. The fully-automated experiment will take place on the European Space Station while members of the larger international team, including Saghir, watch from earth at the Microgravity Advanced Research and Support (MARS) Centre in Naples, Italy.

The experiment will test the individual properties of the components of oil when exposed to heat and then cooled. Five tiny samples of liquid, each made up of different combinations of the components found in oil, will be heated, cooled and reheated to see how each sample expresses thermodiffusion, which is the diffusion of fluids enhanced by temperature.  The results of the experiment will help researchers identify which components of oil will sink and which will rise when exposed to certain temperatures. This information can then be applied to the oil reservoirs found on earth, helping oil companies to identify where and how deep oil and gas lay beneath the earth’s crust. 

Team Canada is lead by Dr. Ziad Saghir, of Ryerson University’s Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, and is comprised of three PhD students, one master’s student and one research scientist. The team is one of eight from seven countries. In 2009, research teams from Spain, Russia, Belgium, Japan, Germany, France and Canada collaborated on the creation of the project proposal. Funding was received from the European Space Agency in 2010 with additional funding from the Canadian Space Agency in 2011.

Over the course of five weeks, members of the research team will monitor the experiment a few hours each day, via video feed at the MARS centre in Naples. They will also have access to limited data gathered throughout the course of this experiment.  Following the experiment, which is set to end in mid-January, the hard drive of the computer performing the experiment will return to earth and the data will be extracted, which may take up to two months. 

This experiment is just the beginning. The entire project will take over three years to complete. The international team will carry out the same experiment with different samples of oil fluids both next fall and in fall 2013.  Once the data is fully compiled and assessed, the team’s final objective is to provide oil companies around the world with information that will assist with oil exploration and recovery.

Ryerson University is Canada's leader in innovative, career-oriented education and a university clearly on the move. With a mission to serve societal need, and a long-standing commitment to engaging its community, Ryerson offers more than 100 undergraduate and graduate programs. Distinctly urban, culturally diverse and inclusive, the university is home to 28,000 students, including 2,300 master's and PhD students, nearly 2,700 faculty and staff, and more than 140,000 alumni worldwide. Research at Ryerson is on a trajectory of success and growth: externally funded research has doubled in the past four years. The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education is Canada's leading provider of university-based adult education. For more information, visit www.ryerson.ca

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