DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

Faculty

Dr. Francisco M. Vargas Assistant Professor Bu Hasa Building, Room 2203 Sas Al Nakhl Campus Office: +971 2 607 5456 Fax: +971 2 607 5200 Email: fvargas@pi.ac.ae

Academic Qualifications

Dr. Francisco M. Vargas joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Petroleum Institute in January of 2010. Prior to joining the Petroleum Institute, he served as Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico. He has also been an active member of the Research Chair in Solar Energy and Thermal-Fluid Sciences at the same institution. Dr. Vargas holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, from Rice University, and M.Sc. and B.Sc. in Environmental Sciences and Chemical Engineering, respectively, from Tecnológico de Monterrey, in Mexico. Dr. Vargas has also worked for the Flow Assurance Team of Chevron Energy Technology Company in Houston, Texas and for DeepStar, a joint industry technology development project supported by a number of oil companies. Dr. Vargas is the manager for the Production Chemistry R&D project. His areas of expertise include general thermodynamic modeling, analysis of phase behavior of petroleum systems and deposition of asphaltenes.

Recent Publications

1. Francisco M. Vargas, Jefferson L. Creek, and Walter G. Chapman, On the Development of an Asphaltene Deposition Simulator, Energy & Fuels, 2010, 24 (4), pp 2294-2299
2. Francisco M. Vargas and Walter G. Chapman, Application of the One-Third rule in Hydrocarbon and Petroleum Systems, Fluid Phase Equilibria, 2010, 290, pp 103-108
3. Francisco M. Vargas, Doris L. Gonzalez, Jefferson L. Creek, Jianxin Wang, Jill Buckley, George J. Hirasaki and Walter G. Chapman, Development of a General Method for Modeling Asphaltene Stability, Energy & Fuels, 2009, 23 (3), pp 1147–1154.
4. Francisco M. Vargas, Doris L. Gonzalez, George J. Hirasaki, and Walter G. Chapman, Modeling Asphaltene Phase Behavior in Crude Oil Systems Using the Perturbed Chain Form of the Statistical Associating Fluid Theory (PC-SAFT) Equation of State, Energy & Fuels, 2009, 23 (3), pp 1140–1146.
5. Doris L. Gonzalez, Francisco M. Vargas, George J. Hirasaki and Walter G. Chapman, Modeling Study of CO2-Induced Asphaltene Precipitation, Energy & Fuels, 2008, 22 (2), pp 757–762.