A review on polymer, gas, surfactant and nanoparticle adsorption modeling in porous media

Abstract

Adsorption is a rock surface phenomenon and has increasingly become popular, especially in particle-transport applications across many fields. This has drawn a remarkable number of publications from the industry and academia in the last decade, with many review articles focused on adsorption of polymers, surfactants, gas, and nanoparticles in porous media with main applications in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). The discussions involved both experimental and modeling approaches to understanding and efficiently mimicking the particle transport in a bid to solve pertinent problems associated with particle retention on surfaces. The governing mechanisms of adsorption and desorption constitute an area under active research as many models have been proposed but the physics has not been fully honored. Thus, there is a need for continuous research effort in this field. Although adsorption/desorption process is a physical phenomenon and a reversible process resulting from inter-molecular and the intramolecular association between molecules and surfaces, modeling these phenomena requires molecular level understanding. For this reason, there is a wide acceptance of molecular simulation as a viable modeling tool among scientists in this area. This review focuses on existing knowledge of adsorption modeling as it relates to the petroleum industry cutting across flow through porous media and EOR mostly involving polymer and surfactant retention on reservoir rocks with the associated problems. The review also analyzes existing models to identify gaps in research and suggest some research directions to readers.

Recent Advances in Multiscale Digital Rock Reconstruction, Flow Simulation, and Experiments during Shale Gas Production

“…Previous work has indicated that the gas flow performance in tiny shale pores is mainly slip and viscous flow in larger nanopores but Knudsen diffusion and surface diffusion in smaller nanopores . The imbalance of attractive forces between fluid molecules and a material surface leads to the accumulation of the adsorbate molecules on the surface of the adsorbent; this process is known as adsorption . The contribution of adsorbed gas mainly includes two aspects.…”

“…111 The imbalance of attractive forces between fluid molecules and a material surface leads to the accumulation of the adsorbate molecules on the surface of the adsorbent; this process is known as adsorption. 112 The contribution of adsorbed gas mainly includes two aspects. First, the adsorbed gas reduces the pore cross-section, which leads to an increment in the slippage effect.…”

Nanomaterials in EOR: A Review and Future Perspectives in Unconventional Reservoirs

“…First, the electrostatic repulsion induced by nanoparticles decreases the bridging polarity head of the surfactants, effectively reducing their adsorption on rock surfaces. , This allows surfactants to penetrate deeper into the formation and maintain interaction with oil for extended periods. Second, the irreversible adsorption of nanoparticles on emulsion droplet surfaces in nanoemulsions strengthens their formation and stability.…”

Biosurfactant-mediated mobility of graphene oxide nanoparticles in saturated porous media

“…Consequently, competitive deposition between GO and bio-surfactant for the surface effective sites played an important role in the enhanced transport of GO by saponin. [70][71][72] That is, the adsorbed saponin molecules masked the heterogeneity of the porous media surface. 73,74 Third, in Fig.…”

“…As mentioned earlier, the primary mechanisms of the promotion effect of saponin on GO transport stemmed from the increased electrostatic repulsion, the steric hindrance, and the decreased straining effect, as well as the competition between nanoparticles and saponin molecules for effective attachment sites. 25,66,70,72,73,75 Notably, unlike Na + , as a transition metal ion, Cu 2+ ions have a great capacity for complexing with carbon-based compounds containing functional groups. 85 It is well known that silicon dioxide and iron oxide contain a large number of surface hydroxyl groups (i.e., ^Si-OH and ^Fe-OH).…”