Mahdi Zeinali Hassanvand
Researcher and Academic Staff
Research Institute of Petroleum Industry
Dr. Mahdi Zeinali Hasanvand, born on 19 September 1987 in Iran, is an accomplished petroleum engineer, researcher, and technology analyst with over 15 years of experience in the oil and gas sector. He holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Petroleum Reservoir Engineering, followed by a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Petroleum University of Technology, Iran.
His career began at the National Iranian Oil Company (Arvandan Oil and Gas), where he worked as a Reservoir Operations Engineer, supervising well operations and conducting reservoir simulations. He later joined the Research Institute of Petroleum Engineering (RIPI), serving as a PVT Project Manager and researcher, specializing in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) and flow assurance. Over six years, he managed multiple scientific projects and published extensively on flue gas injection, asphaltene deposition, and carbonated water injection.
Parallel to his research, Dr. Hasanvand contributed to academia as a Visiting Professor at Azad University, teaching courses in petroleum and chemical engineering to more than 300 undergraduate and graduate students. His teaching was consistently rated highly by students, reflecting his ability to translate complex technical concepts into accessible knowledge.
In 2019, he expanded his skill set internationally as a Frontend Developer at Netcompany in the Netherlands, gaining expertise in programming languages and software development tools. Since 2020, he has served as a Technologist at RIPI, leading technology evaluation, market studies, and economic assessments of emerging oil and gas technologies. His work includes preparing development roadmaps and monitoring innovations such as mini-LNG, hydraulic fracturing, blockchain financing tools, and aquifer storage technologies.
Dr. Hasanvand’s professional achievements are complemented by his fluency in Persian and English, with working knowledge of Arabic. He has supervised teams of up to ten researchers and managed multidisciplinary projects with budgets exceeding $400,000. His publications in international journals highlight his contributions to advancing petroleum engineering knowledge and technology adaptation for the Iranian market.
Married with one child, Dr. Hasanvand resides in Tehran, Iran. His career reflects a unique blend of technical depth, managerial expertise, and strategic vision, positioning him as a leading figure in unconventional gas research and technology management.
Participates in
TECHNICAL PROGRAMME | Energy Infrastructure
When natural gas is combusted in furnaces to generate electricity in thermal power plants or used in refineries and petrochemical plants, it produces carbon dioxide in the form of flue gas (composed of 72% nitrogen, 17% water vapor, and 11% carbon dioxide).
Collecting, purifying, compressing, transporting, and injecting this gas into oil fields creates a cleaner cycle than the traditional fossil fuel-based energy industry. This process prevents flue gas emissions (containing carbon dioxide) from being released into the atmosphere by storing them underground. Additionally, the energy efficiency of thermal power plants and furnaces improves when the produced gas is utilized in a closed cycle. Meanwhile, oil field recovery increases, and the need for valuable natural gas injection is replaced by less valuable flue gas (an enriched CO₂ + N₂ mixture).
Our research team has studied this technology in three parts:
- The process of capturing and purifying combustion gas (surface operations)
- Reservoir engineering and implementing enhanced oil recovery (subsurface operations)
- Economic and environmental aspects
The results have been acceptable in both simulation and laboratory phases. This article presents the surface process, which includes all stages of combustion gas collection, primary separation, multi-stage cooling and compression, transportation from the power plant to the field, and pressurization for injection.
A dehydration and compression unit was designed for post-combustion gas at 60°C, 1.5 bar pressure, and a mass flow rate of 2.5 million tons per year, assuming the oil field is located 35 km from the power plant. Material corrosion was considered a key limiting factor in purification and dehydration (down to 4 ppm H₂O). The dehydration process uses a multi-stage compression and cooling system combined with an absorption-based dehydration unit. To minimize energy consumption, the maximum temperature in each cycle was maintained at 95°C, reducing operating costs. The total power consumption for three flue gas collection scenarios (25%, 60%, and 100% of the power plant's output) was 7 MW, 15 MW, and 24 MW, respectively.
The simulation was followed by an economic study, with investment costs, operational results, and return on investment reported. The results demonstrate both technical and economic advantages for using power plant flue gas in purification processes while reducing carbon emissions.
Co-author/s:
Asadollah Hooshmand, Researcher, University of Tehran.
Mehdi Tabibnejad Azizi, Engineer, MAPNA Oil and Gas Development Company.
