Experimental and Numerical Evaluation of Surfactant-Nanoparticles Foam for Enhanced Oil Recovery under High Temperature

Abstract

In this article, experiments and simulations were conducted to evaluate performance of surfactant-nanoparticles foam for enhanced oil recovery under high temperature. Experimentally, the displacement behavior of surfactant-nanoparticles foam for enhanced oil recovery was studied by micromodel tests at 90 °C. The recovery performance of surfactant-nanoparticles foam flooding was analyzed by sandpack flooding experiments at 150 °C. Theoretically, a mechanistic model of surfactant-nanoparticles foam flooding was constructed. The micromodel tests indicate that the surfactant-nanoparticles foam was more stable than that of the surfactant foam in the porous media at 90 °C. The surfactant-nanoparticles foam could accumulated in the pores with less oil and increase the swept area. The crude oil could be emulsified into oil droplets by surfactant-nanoparticles foam which can greatly enhance the oil recovery. The sandpack flooding results show that the surfactant-nanoparticles foam had better recovery performance at 150 °C. Compared with the surfactant foam, the surfactant-nanoparticles foam produced from the sandpack flooding experiment had a smaller average particle size and higher sphericity. A mechanistic model of surfactant-nanoparticles foam flooding was constructed. A good match was achieved between the numerical simulation and sandpack flooding experiments in terms of pressure and oil recovery by adjusting the model parameters. The simulation study indicates that the performance of surfactant-nanoparticles foam flooding is better than that obtained by surfactant foam flooding under high temperature.

Fabrications and Applications of Micro/Nanofluidics in Oil and Gas Recovery: A Comprehensive Review

“…They found that foam injection in layered media successfully diverted gas from a high permeable fracture to a low permeable matrix . Nanoparticle induced foam, , polymer enhanced foam and self-generated heat foam were also investigated by 2D glass micromodels.…”

Experimental Investigation on Microscopic Force Measurement of Foam and Heavy Oil

“…Alvarez et al studied the adsorption of silica particles at the interfaces of various systems and confirmed that the interfacial tension of the system decreased upon increasing the particle concentration. Lu et al confirmed that mixing FRC-1 foam with nanoparticles displayed excellent stability and displacement. Hu et al studied the injection and displacement effects of nanoparticles in tight oil reservoir environments, and the efficiency of crude oil production increased significantly.…”

Screening High-Temperature Foams with Microfluidics for Thermal Recovery Processes

“…The microflow behavior and the recovery performance of aqueous CO 2 -foam stabilized by particulate matter (PM) from coal combustion has been also studied using a glass-based microfluidic device . Micromodels have recently been applied to compare the recovery performance of foam injection with that of waterflood and steam flood processes, showing improvements in sweep efficiency and porescale recovery factor. , While the majority of the previous microfluidics foam studies provides insight into the foam application for conventional enhanced oil recovery, for thermal extraction processes such as foam-SAGD, it is essential to evaluate the performance of foam agents at relevant reservoir operating temperatures (i.e., >150 °C): the condition where the fluid incompatibility can result in serious reservoir damage, surfactant thermal instability, and overall process inefficiency.…”