Development of Small Molecule CO2 Thickeners for EOR and Fracturing

Lee, J.J.; Cummings, Stephen; Dhuwe, Aman; Enick, Robert M.; Beckman, Eric J.; Perry, Robert J.; O’Brien, Michael J.; Doherty, Mark D.

doi:10.2118/169039-ms

Cited by 20 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…However, there was no significant increase in CO 2 viscosity under these conditions. This calls into question some of the results by Bullen and co-workers as they are much better than later literature [2].…”

Section: Direct Carbon Dioxide Thickeners 21 Polymeric Thickenersmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…P-1-D and poly(vinyl ethyl ether) (PVEE)) ( Figure 1) could increase the viscosity of CO 2 by 13-14-fold at 329 K [15]. Previous research groups found that neither a 1 wt% mixture of PVEE nor P-1-D was capable of enhancing the viscosity in either toluene or CO 2 by more than several percents [2,6,8]. Therefore, Zhang et al findings do not correlate and are inconsistent with the results of other research groups.…”

Section: Direct Carbon Dioxide Thickeners 21 Polymeric Thickenersmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…The use of a polymer thickener is one of the fundamental strategies for increasing CO 2 viscosity [2]. The main advantages of this approach are that the thickening process can enhance CO 2 viscosity over a wide range of temperatures and improve sweep efficiency across the reservoir formation [6].…”

Section: Direct Carbon Dioxide Thickeners 21 Polymeric Thickenersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Overall, all studies found that high/low molecular weight PDMS polymers were more CO 2 -philic than hydrocarbon-based polymers [31], although they were not capable of viscosifying CO 2 without the use of substantial amounts of a co-solvent. However, the high cost of PDMS polymer/ oligomer and high concentration of co-solvent required make the field application for this polymer impractical [2,6,7].…”

Section: Direct Carbon Dioxide Thickeners 21 Polymeric Thickenersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By simply increasing the injected gas viscosity, gas mobility will be reduced, and as a result the sweep efficiency and oil recovery would be improved. The second purpose is to thicken supercritical fracturing fluids to enhance well productivity in tight reservoirs [1][2][3]. This former application is particularly useful for reservoirs Enhanced Oil Recovery Processes -New Technologies 2 that are sensitive to the typical water-based fluids used for fracturing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Direct Gas Thickener

Hinai¹,

Myers²,

Wood³

et al. 2019

Enhanced Oil Recovery Processes - New Technologies

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Direct gas thickening technique has been developed to control the gas mobility in the miscible gas injection process for enhanced oil recovery. This technique involves increasing the viscosity of the injected gas by adding chemicals that exhibit good solubility in common gasses, such as CO 2 or hydrocarbon (HC) solvents. This chapter presents a review of the latest attempts to thicken CO 2 and/or hydrocarbon gases using various chemical additives, which can be broadly categorised into polymeric, conventional oligomers, and small-molecule self-interacting compounds. In an ideal situation, chemical compounds must be soluble in the dense CO 2 or hydrocarbon solvents and insoluble in both crude oil and brine at reservoir conditions. However, it has been recognised that the use of additives with extraordinary molecular weights for the above purpose would be quite challenging since most of the supercritical fluids are very stable with reduced properties as solvents due to the very low dielectric constant, lack of dipole momentum, and low density. Therefore, one way to attain adequate solubility is to elevate the system pressure and temperature because such conditions give rise to the intermolecular forces between segments or introduce functional groups that undergo self-interacting or intermolecular interactions in the oligomer molecular chains to form a viscosity-enhancing supramolecular network structure in the solution. According to this review, some of the polymers tested to date, such as polydimethylsiloxane, polyfluoroacrylate styrene, and poly(1,1-dihydroperfluorooctyl acrylate), may induce a significant increase of the solvent viscosity at high concentrations. However, the cost and environmental constraints of these materials have made the field application of these thickeners unfeasible. Until now, thickeners composed of small molecules have shown little success to thicken CO 2 , because CO 2 is a weak solvent due to its ionic and polar characteristics. However, these thickeners have resulted in promising outcomes when used in light alkane solvents.

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Section: Direct Carbon Dioxide Thickeners 21 Polymeric Thickenersmentioning

confidence: 78%