Experimental organic matter maturation at 2kbar: Heat-up effect to low temperatures on vitrinite reflectance

Abstract An experimental study was performed to evaluate the effect of heat-up to various low temperatures on vitrinite reflectance ( VR ) at 2 kbar employing the same previously used heat-up procedures, starting material and apparatus. Heat-up is the isobaric experimental procedure consisting of the increase in temperature of the laboratory vitrinite maturation from room temperature to the desired run temperature T end of heat-up at which the isobaric-isothermal maturation starts. Experiments employed cold-seal pressure vessels with classical heat-up devices and were carried out on wet (water added) xylite of swamp cypress. Confined system maturation experiments were conducted at 2 kbar an…