Enhancing the Stability of Foam by the Use of Nanoparticles

Abstract

Foam generation is one of the most promising techniques to overcome gas mobility challenges and improve the sweep efficiency of reservoir fluids. The synergistic effect of surfactant and nanoparticles can help produce a stronger and more stable foam in reservoir porous media. The objective of this work is to assess the ability of anionic surfactant and a mixture of the surfactant and nanoparticles to produce foam for gas mobility control and the enhancement of oil recovery. Static, dynamic, and core flood tests were conducted to evaluate foam strength. Static foam tests in the presence of crude oil showed a clear trend on foam behavior when solid nanoparticles were added to surfactant. As the concentration of nanoparticles increases, the foam half-life increases, too. Foamability tests in Bentheimer sandstone showed better foam generation and stabilization when nanoparticles were used. The addition of nanoaprticles to surfactant solutions resulted in higher pressure drop and, therefore, higher reduction of gas mobility compared to surfactant. The rise in temperature from 25 to 50 °C reduces the measured pressure drop across the core samples in the absence and presence of nanoparticles, which can be attributed to the reduction in foam stability and strength. Both surfactant and a mixture of surfactant and nanoparticles were able to enhance oil recovery. The surfactant was able to bring the oil recovery to 41.45% of the original oil in place (OOIP). In contrast, the presence of nanoparticles resulted in higher oil recovery, 49.05%, of the OOIP.

Impact of Nitrogen Foamed Stimulation Fluids Stabilized by Nanoadditives on Reservoir Rocks of Hydrocarbon Deposits

“…After adding 0.1 wt.% of natural polymer to U-2 nanoparticles, the viscosity went up to 22 and 55 cP for the tested foam qualities, respectively. The nanoparticle addition increased the stability of the foamed fluid, which was confirmed by the authors of [58]. The increased stability was also confirmed by analyzing the half-time.…”

Nano-fluid viscosity screening and study of in situ foam pressure buildup at high-temperature high-pressure conditions

“…To this effect, Azarshin et al (2017) experimentally investigated the effect of silane-modified SiO 2 NPs in waterflood injection scenario and concluded by applauding the role of surface coating to influence the IFT and contact angle and ultimately increased oil production by 18% relative to uncoated NPs. Similarly, Al Yousef et al (2017Yousef et al ( , 2019 in their foam stabilization experiment using surface-functionalized NPs found out that functionalized NPs have the ability to decrease gas mobility. The NPs/NF could be a suitable candidate to improve various properties; consequently, the application of NPs with emphasis on the modified materials has still remained the subject of discussion for the purpose of increasing hydrocarbon recovery.…”

Imidazolium based ionic liquid stabilized foams for conformance control: bulk and porous scale investigation

“…Among this, gas ooding is one of the most successful and studied methods for the depleted reservoirs, which contributes to about 39% of recovery among all the EOR methods. 2,3 Wherein, gases like CO 2 , N 2 , hydrocarbon and/or the combination of any of these gases are employed at the end of the waterooding.…”