Microbial Improved Oil Recovery Research Articles

Numerical Investigation of Diffusion thermo and Thermal Diffusion on Mixed Convection flow of Williamson Nanofluid through a vertical cone with porous material in the presence Thermal radiation and Activation Energy

In this paper, analyze the impact of Activation energy, Diffusion thermo and thermal diffusion with heat and mass transfer inherent of over a vertical cone through Thermally Radiant Williamson nanofluid with saturated porous medium under the convective boundary condition in the presence of thermal radiation has been studied. The coefficients of Brownian and thermophoresis diffusions are also taken into consideration. The governing partial differential equations are reduced to a couple of nonlinear ordinary differential equations by using suitable transformation equations; these equations are then solved numerically with the use of the conventional fourth-order Runge Kutta method accompanied by the shooting technique. As a result, the effects of various physical parameters on the velocity, temperature, and nanoparticle concentration profiles as well as on the skin friction coefficient and rate of heat transfer are discussed with the aid of graphs and tables. This study has been directly applied in the pharmaceutical industry, microfluidic technology, microbial improved oil recovery, modelling oil and gas-bearing sedimentary basins, and many other fields. Further, to check the accuracy and validation of the present results, satisfactory concurrence is observed with the existing literature.

Numerical Investigation of Diffusion Thermo and Thermal Diffusion on MHD Convective Flow of Williamson Nanofluid on a Stretching Surface Through a Porous Medium in the Presence Chemical Reaction and Thermal Radiation

In this paper, analyze the impact of Diffusion thermo and thermal diffusion with heat and mass transfer inherent of thermally radiant Williamson nanofluid over a stretyching surface through a porous medium under the convective boundary condition in the presence of thermal radiation and chemical reaction has been studied. The coefficients of Brownian and thermophoresis diffusions are also taken into consideration. The governing partial differential equations are reduced to a couple of nonlinear ordinary differential equations by using suitable transformation equations; these equations are then solved numerically with the use of the conventional fourth-order Runge Kutta method accompanied by the shooting technique. As a result, the effects of various physical parameters on the velocity, temperature, and nanoparticle concentration profiles as well as on the skin friction coefficient and rate of heat transfer are discussed with the aid of graphs and tables. This study has been directly applied in the pharmaceutical industry, microfluidic technology, microbial improved oil recovery, modelling oil and gas-bearing sedimentary basins, and many other fields. Further, to check the accuracy and validation of the present results, satisfactory concurrence is observed with the existing literature.

Unsteady MHD Williamson Fluid Flow with the Effect of Bioconvection over Permeable Stretching Sheet

The unsteady flow of Williamson fluid with the effect of bioconvection in the heat and mass transfer occurring over a stretching sheet is investigated. A uniform magnetic field, thermal radiation, thermal dissipation, and chemical reactions are taken into account as additional effects. The physical problem is formulated in the form of a system of partial differential equations and solved numerically. For this purpose, similarity functions are involved to transmute these equations into corresponding ordinary differential equations. After that, the Runge-Kutta method with shooting technique is employed to evaluate the desired findings with the utilization of a MATLAB script. As a result, the effects of various physical parameters on the velocity, temperature, and nanoparticle concentration profiles as well as on the skin friction coefficient and rate of heat transfer are discussed with the aid of graphs and tables. The parameters of Brownian motion and thermophoresis are responsible for the rise in temperature and bioconvection Rayleigh number diminishes the velocity field. This study on nanofluid bioconvection has been directly applied in the pharmaceutical industry, microfluidic technology, microbial improved oil recovery, modelling oil and gas-bearing sedimentary basins, and many other fields. Further, to check the accuracy and validation of the present results, satisfactory concurrence is observed with the existing literature.

Analysis of Microscopic Displacement Mechanisms of a MIOR Process in Porous Media with Different Wettability

The wettability of the reservoir rock has an important effect on the displacement of fluids on a microscopic scale in all EOR processes, especially in the microbial improved oil recovery (MIOR) process. This study describes the effect of wettability on microscopic two-phase flow displacement mechanisms of bacterial flooding. It enables us to get better understanding and prediction capability of macroscale flow behavior of the MIOR process. To achieve the goal, a number of visualization experiments have been carried out in glass micromodels with water wet and oil wet wettability status. Synthetic brine and model oil and an alkane oxidizing bacterium are used to explain the different behavior of microscopic displacement mechanisms in the water wet and oil wet micromodels. The results obtained in the two media are presented and compared. The observational results show the effect of wettability of porous media on remaining oil saturation and oil phase transportation. In water wet model, the oil is remained mostly as isolated drops while in oil wet model, the remaining oil is the continuous phase. The bacteria have the ability to displace the residual oil trapped in the micromodel. It is shown that the bacteria have various performances in the oil wet and water wet systems. The acting mechanisms supporting the displacement process are the interfacial tension reduction, wettability changes, and pore blocking.

Fundamental Study of Pore Scale Mechanisms in Microbial Improved Oil Recovery Processes

A fundamental study of microscopic mechanisms and pore-level phenomena in the Microbial Improved Oil Recovery method has been investigated. Understanding active mechanisms to increase oil recovery is the key to predict and plan MIOR projects successfully. This article presents the results of visualization experiments carried out in a transparent pore network model. In order to study the pore scale behavior of bacteria, dodecane and an alkane oxidizing bacterium, Rhodococcus sp. 094, suspended in brine, are examined for evaluating the performance of bacterial flooding in the glass micromodel. The observations show the effects of bacteria on remaining oil saturation, allowing us to get better insight on the mechanisms. Bacterial mass composed of bacteria and bioproducts growth in the fluid interfaces and pore walls have been recorded and are presented. No gas is observed throughout any of the experiments. The biomass blocks some pores and pore-throats, and thereby changing the flow pattern. As a consequent, the flow pattern change together with the previously proposed mechanisms, including the interfacial tension reduction and wettability changes are recognized as active mechanisms in the MIOR process.

Microbial improved oil recovery—bacterial induced wettability and interfacial tension effects on oil production

Microbial Improved Oil Recovery (MIOR) utilizes the effect of oil degrading bacteria that grow on the oil–water interface. It has been demonstrated that the presence of growing bacteria in an oil and water saturated sandstone core can result in significant increased oil recovery upon water flooding [Torsvik, T., Gilje, E. and Sunde, E., Aerobic Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery, Paper presented at the 5th International Conference on Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery, Dallas TX, USA, Sep. 11, 1995]. Several mechanisms are proposed to explain this observed effect, among which are reduction in the oil–water interfacial tension (IFT) and changes in the wettability of the system. The experimental results from the present study indicate that bacterial growth can both reduce IFT and change the wettability towards less water-wet conditions. A subsequent simulation study shows that a change in wettability towards a less water-wet behavior can reproduce the increased oil recovery observed during the core flood reported by Torsvik et al. Furthermore, the simulations also indicate that a gradual and strong reduction in IFT can reproduce the same experimental data. Both the effect of changed wettability and reduction in IFT was included in the simulation model as changes to the relative permeability curves, constructed from general theory on IFT reduction and wettability alteration.

Coreflood Experiment of Heavy Oil by Thermus SP3

Abstract One low-cost improved oil recovery (IOR) technology making significant advances is reservoir flooding with thermophilic microbes. The gram-negative cells of the Thermus SP3 strain were grown at high temperatures up to 85 ° C in the neutral to alkaline pH range. Depending on the culture conditions, the organism occurred as single rods, or as filamentous aggregates. Thermus SP3 was grown chemoorganotrophically and produced volatile fatty acids, 4-hydroxy-4-methyl-2-pentanone, xylene, undecane, 1,2-benzenedicarboxylic acid, bis (2-methyprophl) ester, dibutyl phthalate, di-n-octyl phthalate and surfactants, which had various effects on crude oil. Thermus SP3 could decrease the viscosity and paraffin content of crude oil, degrade heavy fractions, increase the content of light compositions of crude oil, improving the physical and chemical properties, and improve oil recovery (12.59%). Thermophilic Thermus SP3 strain was screened to begin optimizing the process and coreflood was performed to quantify oil recovery. A laboratory coreflood experiment using microbial flooding methodology showed that oil recovery was better than with chemical flooding oil recovery. Introduction The diminished opportunity for the discovery of major high quality oil reserves and the oil production decline in mature fields have stimulated an increase in the application of improved oil recovery (IOR) technologies. The increased demand for IOR has initiated recent advances in the research of low cost microbial flooding(1). Microorganisms have potential use in Microbial Improved Oil Recovery (MIOR) due to the metabolites produced during in situ fermentation. Laboratory studies have shown that these metabolites, which include biopolymers, biosurfactants, biogas, solvents, and organic acids, are useful in modifying the relative permeability of the reservoir as well as increasing the mobility of the oil trapped in the rock(2–7). Heavy oil is of higher viscosity and density, and contains many resins and asphaltenes. At present, the conventional method to recover heavy oil is a physical method, but it is expensive and makes the ambient environment polluted. Microbial systems have been used in heavy oil reservoirs in order to overcome these problems and improve oil recovery. There are two main methods to improve heavy oil recovery by microbes. One method is to reduce the viscosity of heavy oil; the other method is to change the relative permeability by microbes clogging the high permeability zones. Generally, temperatures in most reservoirs vary from 60 ° C to 110 ° C, which are higher than the ambient temperature. However, the growth temperature for most bacteria is 20 ° C to 50 ° C, and many bacteria are not suitable to high temperature environments. Thermophilic bacteria isolated from the oil field can grow in a high temperature environment, and be adapted to the reservoir conditions. The simulation represents a laboratory attempt to replicate the field environment. This allows some of the nonessential complexity of field studies to be eliminated while it simultaneously facilitates experimental control. Ideally, there should be continuity from the simple laboratory system, through the experimentally manageable simulation, to the naturally complex field environment(8). Coreflood simulations are an important part of MEOR research.