Laboratory evaluation of a novel Self-healable polymer gel for CO2 leakage remediation during CO2 storage and CO2 flooding

Abstract

For CO2 storage in subsurface reservoirs, one of the most crucial requirements is the ability to remediate the leakage caused by the natural fractures or newly generated fractures due to the increasing pore pressure associated with CO2 injection. For CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), high conductivity features such as fractures and void space conduits can severely restrict the CO2 sweep efficiency. Polymer gels have been developed to plug the leakage and improve the sweep efficiency. This work evaluated a CO2 resistant branched self-healable preformed particle gel (CO2-BRPPG) for CO2 plugging purpose. This novel CO2-BRPPG can reform a mechanical robust adhesive bulk gel after being placed in the reservoir and efficiently seal fractures. In this work, the swelling kinetics, self-healing behavior, thermal stability, CO2 stability, rheology, adhesion property and plugging performance of this novel CO2-BRPPG were studied in the laboratory. Results showed that this CO2-BRPPG has good self-healing abilities, and the self-healed bulk gel has excellent mechanical and adhesion strength. Gel with a swelling ratio of ten has an elastic modulus of over 2000 Pa, and the adhesion strength to sandstone is 1.16 psi. The CO2-BRPPG has good CO2 phase stability at 65 °C, and no dehydration was observed after 60 days of exposure to 2900 psi CO2 at 65 °C. Core flooding test proved that the swelled particles could reform a bulk gel after being placed in the fractures, and the reformed bulky gel has excellent CO2 plugging efficiency. The supercritical CO2 breakthrough pressure gradient was 265 psi/feet (5.48 MPa/m). This work could offer the experimental basis for the field application of this CO2-BRPPG in CO2 storage and CO2 enhanced oil recovery.