Abstract
Copolymers of acrylamide with the sodium salt of 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonic acid—known as sulfonated polyacrylamide polymers—had been shown to produce very promising results in the enhancement of oil recovery, particularly in polymer flooding. The aim of this work is to develop an empirical model through the use of a design of experiments (DOE) approach for bulk viscosity of these copolymers as a function of polymer characteristics (i.e., sulfonation degree and molecular weight), oil reservoir conditions (i.e., temperature, formation brine salinity and hardness) and field operational variables (i.e., polymer concentration, shear rate and aging time). The data required for the non-linear regression analysis were generated from 120 planned experimental runs, which had used the Box-Behnken construct from the typical Response Surface Methodology (RSM) design. The data were collected during rheological experiments and the model that was constructed had been proven to be acceptable with the Adjusted R-Squared value of 0.9624. Apart from showing the polymer concentration as being the most important factor in the determination of polymer solution viscosity, the evaluation of the model terms as well as the Sobol sensitivity analysis had also shown a considerable interaction between the process parameters. As such, the proposed viscosity model can be suitably applied to the optimization of the polymer solution properties for the polymer flooding process and the prediction of the rheological data required for polymer flood simulators.
Highlights
Introduction to Polymer Flooding a continuous depletion of oil reservoir pressure during primary recovery can eventually result in a fall in oil production, this can be overcome by injecting the water into the reservoir via an immiscible displacement process called water flooding
The eight independent factors that had been identified under the literature review [9,17,20,34,47] as having possible significant effects on the polymer solution viscosity were chosen as input parameters for the model
This study identified and modelled the effects of significant process parameters on the bulk viscosity of sulfonated polyacrylamide polymers for the polymer-related enhanced oil recovery (EOR) process applications
Summary
A continuous depletion of oil reservoir pressure during primary recovery can eventually result in a fall in oil production, this can be overcome by injecting the water into the reservoir via an immiscible displacement process called water flooding. The Buckley-Leverett method [1] can be defined as the simplest and most broadly employed approach to determine the advancement with regards to the fluid displacement front for an immiscible displacement process. In improved oil recovery techniques, the mobility ratio (M) is known to play an important role, where its calculation can be shown as such: M= kw /μw. Mobility o f diplacin f f luid (water in here) = ko /μo. Mobility o f diplaced f luid (oil in here). Polymers 2019, 11, x FOR PEER REVIEW
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