Abstract
The characterization and enhanced oil recovery mechanisms of a nanosized polymeric cross-linked gel are presented herein. A negatively charged nanogel was synthesized using a typical free radical suspension polymerization process by employing 2-acrylamido 2-methyl propane sulfonic acid monomer. The synthesized nanogel showed a narrow size distribution with one peak pointing to a predominant homogeneous droplet size. The charged nanogels were also able to adsorb at the oil–water interfaces to reduce interfacial tension and stabilize oil-in-water emulsions, which ultimately improved the recovered oil from hydrocarbon reservoirs. In addition, a fixed concentration of negatively charged surfactant (sodium dodecyl sulfate or SDS) was combined with different concentrations of the nanogel. The effect of the nanogels combined with surfactant on sandstone core plugs was examined by running a series of core flooding experiments using multiple flow patterns. The results show that combining nanogel and SDS was able to reduce the interfacial tension to a value of 6 Nm/m. The core flooding experiments suggest the ability of the nanogel, both alone and combined with SDS, to improve the oil recovery by a factor of 15% after initial seawater flooding.
Highlights
Most oilfields around the world have already reached or will soon reach the phase where the oil production rate is approaching the decline period (Hendraningrat et al 2013)
Different particle gels have been proposed to enhance oil recovery and control excess water production such as preformed particle gels (PPG) (Bai et al 2007), micro-gels (Rousseau et al 2005), temperaturesensitive gels which are commonly known as bright water
Negatively charged Na-AMPS nanogel and solution of each nanogel and surfactant (SDS) surfactant were employed as potential feasible materials for enhanced oil recovery in sandstone reservoirs
Summary
Most oilfields around the world have already reached or will soon reach the phase where the oil production rate is approaching the decline period (Hendraningrat et al 2013). One of the major challenges that face the oil industry today is how to delay the abandonment of current fields by reducing excess water production and extracting more oil economically. Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) applications are generally implemented in oilfields to enhance oil recovery and reduce water production. Chemical-based EOR methods (thermal, gas, and alkine/surfacant/polymer (ASP) methods) can improve oil recovery through five major mechanisms: (1) interfacial tension reduction, (2) wettability modification toward a water-wet state, (3) conformance control improvement for better sweep efficiency, (4) emulsifying crude oil, and (5) foam generation (Binks et al 2007; Thomas 2008; Pal et al 2018). Different particle gels have been proposed to enhance oil recovery and control excess water production such as preformed particle gels (PPG) (Bai et al 2007), micro-gels (Rousseau et al 2005), temperaturesensitive gels which are commonly known as bright water
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