Effects of asphaltenes and organic acids on crude oil-brine interfacial visco-elasticity and oil recovery in low-salinity waterflooding

Garcia-Olvera, Griselda; Reilly, Teresa; Lehmann, Teresa; Alvarado, Vladimir

doi:10.1016/j.fuel.2016.07.104

Cited by 101 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…While attempting to get more insight into this recovery method, the majority of studies have focused on the brine/mineral interactions. However, the idea is recently gaining popularity that the increased oil recovery comes to a great extent from the fluid-fluid interactions 1–4 . Several mechanisms related to the oil/brine system have been reported as responsible for the increased oil recovery: wettability alteration 4,5 , viscoelasticity of the brine-oil interface 1,3,6,7 , interfacial tension (IFT) alteration 8 , emulsion formation 2,9 , and viscosity decrease 2 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…García Olvera et al . 1 studied the changes in the viscoelasticity (a rheological property) and the emulsion stability of a sulfate containing brine and different crude oils. A relationship between the asphaltene content and properties of the interface was observed: crude oils with higher asphaltene content showed higher elastic and viscous moduli and an increased IFT.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An overview of the oil-brine interfacial behavior and a new surface complexation model

Bonto

Eftekhari

Nick

2019

Sci Rep

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The few existing surface complexation models (SCM) for the brine-oil interface have important limitations: the chemistry of each crude oil is not considered, they cannot capture the water/non-polar hydrocarbons surface charge, the interactions between Na + and the acid sites are not included, and the equilibrium constants for the adsorption reactions are not validated against experimental data. We address the aforementioned constraints by proposing an improved diffuse-layer SCM for the oil-brine interface. The new model accounts for the chemistry of crude oils by considering surface sites linearly dependent on the TAN (total acid number) and TBN (total base number). We define weak sites to account for the negative surface charge observed for non-polar hydrocarbons in water. We optimize the parameters of our model by fitting the model to reported zeta potential measurements of oil in aqueous solutions. When we validate the optimized model against different experimental data sets, it generally shows a good performance in predicting the surface charge of oil in different brines with different pHs. We show that the acid and base numbers are only useful as a qualitative estimation of the distribution of polar groups at the oil surface, and more sophisticated analysis is necessary to quantify the chemistry of the oil-brine interface.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An overview of the oil-brine interfacial behavior and a new surface complexation model

Bonto

Eftekhari

Nick

2019

Sci Rep

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“…Although NAs are weak acids and do not disassociate entirely in aqueous solution, even this limited dissociation may affect the physical properties of brine and govern its interfacial behavior. Although there are some research works trying to identify the role of polar components on the interfacial performance between crude oil and brine and their effects on IFT and emulsion stability (Alvarado et al 2011;Czarnecki et al 2013;Garcia-Olvera et al 2016;Sorbie 2009, 2010), the mechanisms involved and the effect of contact time on the physical properties of reservoir fluids are ambiguous. Therefore, this work is aimed to design a series of organized experiments to assess the interactions between brine and crude oil in contact for a period of 45 days.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dissociation of polar oil components in low salinity water and its impact on crude oil–brine interfacial interactions and physical properties

Mokhtari

Ayatollahi

2018

Pet. Sci.

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Despite many efforts into the study of fluids interaction in low salinity water flooding, they are not probing the basics of transport phenomena between the involved phases. This work is aimed to bring new understanding of fluid-fluid interaction during low salinity water flooding through a series of organized experiments in which a crude oil sample with known properties was kept in contact with different brine solutions of various ionic strengths. Measuring brine pH, conductivity and crude oil viscosity and density for a period of 45 days illustrates the strong effect of the contact time and ionic strength on the dissociation of polar components and physical properties of the crude oil and brine. Besides, the interfacial tension (IFT) measurements show that the interfacial interactions are affected by several competitive interfacial processes. By decreasing the ionic strength of the brine, the solubility of naphthenic acids in the aqueous solution increases, and hence, the conductivity and the pH of the aqueous phase decrease. To verify this important finding, UV-Vis spectroscopy and 1 H NMR analysis were also performed on aged brine samples. Notably, there is an ionic strength of brine in which the lowest IFT is observed, while the other physical properties are remained relatively unchanged.

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“…This research found that the brine concentration has a significant effect on the amount of emulsion formed and that its formation significantly depends on the crude oil composition. • García-Olvera, Reilly, Lehmann & Alvarado (2016) reported that the emulsion stability is a complex function of the dynamic interfacial properties and does not correlate to oil recovery. They also observed that the organic acids present in oil play an important role in the values of the viscous and elastic components of the interface rheological characteristics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of ionic composition in water: oil interactions in adjusted brine chemistry waterflooding: preliminary results

Maya¹,

Herrera²,

Orrego³

et al. 2018

Rev. fuentes reventón enrg.

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Low salinity or adjusted brine composition waterflooding (LSW or ABCW) is considered a promising improved/enhanced oil recovery (IOR/EOR) method. Despite the large number of studies documented in the literature, there are contradictory results and a lack of consensus regarding the mechanisms that operate in this recovery process. The proposed fluid:rock and fluid:fluid mechanisms are still under discussion and investigation. However, the impact of oil geochemistry and its importance on the fluid:fluid interactions that can occur with brines during LSW or ABCW have been overlooked and studied in a lesser extent.The scope of the present study is to preliminary evaluate crude oil:brine interactions to validate the influence of its compositions. These interactions were evaluated at static conditions for a week and reservoir temperature (60°C) using two oil samples from different Colombian basins and brine solutions of different composition at a constant ionic strength (I = 0.086). Specifically, this investigation evaluated the effect of the type of cation (Na+ and Ca2+) and anion (Cl- and SO4=) on crude oil:brine interactions. The results of these experiments were compared with tests using distilled water (DW). Although a basic characterization of brines (i.e. pH, alkalinity and ionic composition) and oil (oil viscosity) was performed, the main objective of this study is the analysis of water-soluble organic compounds (WSOC) using Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometry (FT-ICR MS). The results demonstrate that water:oil interactions are dependent on brine and crude oil compositions. The main changes observed in the aqueous phase were the increase in inorganic components (desalting effects) and organic compounds soluble in water. Only the system crude oil A and NaCl (5,000 ppm) showed the formation of a micro dispersion. Negative electrospray ionization (ESI (-)) FT-ICR MS data shows that WSOC’s identified in DW and Na2SO4 after the interaction with crude oil A belongs to similar classes but there is marked selectivity of species solubilized with different brines. The relative abundance of classes Ox, OxS and NOx (x > 2) decreases while Ox, OxS and NOx (x ≤ 2) increase their solubility in the presence of Na2SO4 compared to DW. The analysis of O2 and O3S classes using double bond equivalence (DBE) vs. carbon number (CN) contour plots shows that the isoabundance of water-soluble species are within the range of DBE £ 10 and CN £ 20 regardless the brine used in the experiments. Finally, the method of solvent extraction in silica columns used in this investigation for the analysis of WSOC using FT-ICR MS represents a powerful and new approach to study LSW and ABCW.

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Effects of asphaltenes and organic acids on crude oil-brine interfacial visco-elasticity and oil recovery in low-salinity waterflooding

Cited by 101 publications

References 22 publications

An overview of the oil-brine interfacial behavior and a new surface complexation model

An overview of the oil-brine interfacial behavior and a new surface complexation model

Dissociation of polar oil components in low salinity water and its impact on crude oil–brine interfacial interactions and physical properties

Effect of ionic composition in water: oil interactions in adjusted brine chemistry waterflooding: preliminary results

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