TY - JOUR
T1 - A microfluidic study to investigate the effect of magnetic iron core-carbon shell nanoparticles on displacement mechanisms of crude oil for chemical enhanced oil recovery
AU - Betancur, Stefanía
AU - Olmos, Carol M.
AU - Pérez, Maximiliano
AU - Lerner, Betiana
AU - Franco, Camilo A.
AU - Riazi, Masoud
AU - Gallego, Jaime
AU - Carrasco-Marín, Francisco
AU - Cortés, Farid B.
N1 - Funding Information:
Ph.D. (c) Stefanía Betancur wants to acknowledge to the Departamento Administrativo de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación de Colombia (COLCIENCIAS) for the scholarship received from call 727–2015. The authors thank the financial support from CONICET (PIP2015) and ANPCyT (PICT 4819 and 1021). The authors also acknowledge Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Universidad de Granada, agreement 3010388 of 2017 with Ecopetrol S.A. agreement 647 of 2015 and 064 of 2018 with COLCIENCIAS and Agencia Nacional de Hidrocarburos (ANH,Colombia), Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (Spain), FEDER, contract number RTI2018-099224-B-I00 and Junta de Andalucía Ref. RMN-172 for the support provided.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2020/1
Y1 - 2020/1
N2 - The main objective of this work is to evaluate the effect of the simultaneous use of a surfactant mixture and magnetic iron core-carbon shell nanoparticles on oil recovery via a microfluidic study based on the rock-on-a-chip technology. The surfactant solution used for all experiments was prepared based on a field formulation and consisted of a mixture of a hydrophilic and a lipophilic surfactant. Magnetic iron core-carbon shell nanoparticles with a mean particle size of 60 nm and a surface area of 123 m2 g−1 were employed. The displacement experiments consisted of waterflooding, surfactant flooding and nanoparticle-surfactant flooding and were performed using PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane)-glass microdevices type random network. The characteristics and design of the microfluidic device allowed to emulate a mixed wettability of a porous medium. Then, the oil was displaced by injecting the solution at a constant injection rate, until steady-state conditions were obtained. Furthermore, the effect of three injection rates corresponding to 0.1 ft day−1, 1 ft day−1, and 10 ft day−1 was investigated. The increase in the injection rate favored the oil recovery percentage. In addition, for all injection rates, the oil recovery decreased in the following order: nanoparticle-surfactant flooding > surfactant flooding > waterflooding. The nanoparticle-surfactant system at the injection rate of 1.9 μL min−1 presented the highest oil recovery (i.e., 84%). Likewise, nanoparticle-surfactant flooding showed a more stable displacement front and consequently, the highest capillary number among the injection fluids. Oil recovery by waterflooding was the lowest among the evaluated systems due to the viscous fingering phenomena under different injection rates. In addition, it can be observed that for all injection rates, the presence of the surfactant mixture and nanoparticles reduce the viscous fingering effect. The results can be used to visually and quantitatively analyze the role of the simultaneous use of nanoparticles with surfactants in enhanced oil recovery processes.
AB - The main objective of this work is to evaluate the effect of the simultaneous use of a surfactant mixture and magnetic iron core-carbon shell nanoparticles on oil recovery via a microfluidic study based on the rock-on-a-chip technology. The surfactant solution used for all experiments was prepared based on a field formulation and consisted of a mixture of a hydrophilic and a lipophilic surfactant. Magnetic iron core-carbon shell nanoparticles with a mean particle size of 60 nm and a surface area of 123 m2 g−1 were employed. The displacement experiments consisted of waterflooding, surfactant flooding and nanoparticle-surfactant flooding and were performed using PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane)-glass microdevices type random network. The characteristics and design of the microfluidic device allowed to emulate a mixed wettability of a porous medium. Then, the oil was displaced by injecting the solution at a constant injection rate, until steady-state conditions were obtained. Furthermore, the effect of three injection rates corresponding to 0.1 ft day−1, 1 ft day−1, and 10 ft day−1 was investigated. The increase in the injection rate favored the oil recovery percentage. In addition, for all injection rates, the oil recovery decreased in the following order: nanoparticle-surfactant flooding > surfactant flooding > waterflooding. The nanoparticle-surfactant system at the injection rate of 1.9 μL min−1 presented the highest oil recovery (i.e., 84%). Likewise, nanoparticle-surfactant flooding showed a more stable displacement front and consequently, the highest capillary number among the injection fluids. Oil recovery by waterflooding was the lowest among the evaluated systems due to the viscous fingering phenomena under different injection rates. In addition, it can be observed that for all injection rates, the presence of the surfactant mixture and nanoparticles reduce the viscous fingering effect. The results can be used to visually and quantitatively analyze the role of the simultaneous use of nanoparticles with surfactants in enhanced oil recovery processes.
KW - Enhanced oil recovery
KW - Microfluidic
KW - Nanoparticles
KW - Surfactant
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85074508734&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85074508734&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.petrol.2019.106589
DO - 10.1016/j.petrol.2019.106589
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85074508734
SN - 0920-4105
VL - 184
JO - Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering
JF - Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering
M1 - 106589
ER -
