Abstract
Recently, the combination of conventional chemical methods for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and nanotechnology has received lots of attention. This experimental study explores the dynamic changes in the oil configuration due to the addition of nanoparticles (NPs) to biopolymer flooding. The tests were performed in water-wet micromodels using Xanthan Gum and Scleroglucan, and silica-based NPs in a secondary mode. The microfluidic setup was integrated with a microscope to capture the micro-scale fluid configurations. The change in saturation, connectivity, and cluster size distributions of the non-wetting phase was evaluated by means of image analysis. The biopolymer content did not affect the ability of the NPs to reduce the interfacial tension. The experiments showed that the reference nanofluid (NF) flood led to the highest ultimate oil recovery, compared to the Xanthan Gum, Scleroglucan and brine flooding at the same capillary number. In the cases of adding NPs to the biopolymer solutions, NPs-assisted Xanthan flooding achieved the highest ultimate oil recovery. This behavior was also evident at a higher capillary number. The overall finding suggests a more homogenous dispersion of the NPs in the solution and a reduction in the polymer adsorption in the Xanthan Gum/NPs solution, which explains the improvement in the sweep efficiency and recovery factor.
Highlights
One of the most common enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques is polymer flooding
In the early stages of the waterflooding and using concentrations from 250 ppm to 304 ppm, the results showed no damage in the formation, and the decline in the water production in some production wells could be attributed to the positive effect of the biopolymers
Cheraghian and Khalilinezhad, 2015 [22] tested the addition of nanoclay to polymer flooding on core-scale. They found that the best recipe resulted in incremental heavy oil recovery by a factor of 5% of original oil in place (OOIP) in comparison to polymer flooding after one pore volume fluid injection
Summary
One of the most common enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques is polymer flooding. That is described by adding polymer molecules to the aqueous injected phase aiming to increase the viscosity of the solution to be injected, reducing the mobility ratio of water to oil and to controlling the fingering effects. Cheraghian and Khalilinezhad, 2015 [22] tested the addition of nanoclay (at three concentrations: 0.8, 0.9, and 1.0 wt.%) to polymer flooding (at different concentrations of HPAM) on core-scale They found that the best recipe resulted in incremental heavy oil recovery by a factor of 5% of OOIP in comparison to polymer flooding after one pore volume fluid injection. Another experimental work showed that silica NPs and nanoclay increased the PAM solution viscosity and decreased its adsorption onto the rock [23]. This study provides new insight into the application of NPs in the oil and gas industry
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