Flow of viscoelastic surfactants through porous media

De, Shauvik; Koesen, S. P.; Maitri, Rohit V.; Golombok, M Michael; Padding, JT Johan; Santvoort, J. F. M. van

doi:10.1002/aic.15960

Cited by 25 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Recent work suggests a key role played by flow instabilities in enhancing fluid recovery. Indeed, microfluidic experiments have shown that unstable flow is often characterized by a dramatic increase in η app , as described in Section —leading to a concomitant increase in Ca . This idea has been directly verified using oil globules trapped in a microfluidic porous medium: injecting polymer solutions can increase the apparent Ca by nearly an order of magnitude, thereby increasing oil recovery ( Figure a,b) .…”

Section: Improved Fluid Recovery From Porous Mediamentioning

confidence: 69%

Pore‐Scale Flow Characterization of Polymer Solutions in Microfluidic Porous Media

Browne

Shih

Datta

2019

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103

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Polymer solutions are frequently used in enhanced oil recovery and groundwater remediation to improve the recovery of trapped nonaqueous fluids. However, applications are limited by an incomplete understanding of the flow in porous media. The tortuous pore structure imposes both shear and extension, which elongates polymers; moreover, the flow is often at large Weissenberg numbers, Wi, at which polymer elasticity in turn strongly alters the flow. This dynamic elongation can even produce flow instabilities with strong spatial and temporal fluctuations despite the low Reynolds number, Re. Unfortunately, macroscopic approaches are limited in their ability to characterize the pore‐scale flow. Thus, understanding how polymer conformations, flow dynamics, and pore geometry together determine these nontrivial flow patterns and impact macroscopic transport remains an outstanding challenge. This review describes how microfluidic tools can shed light on the physics underlying the flow of polymer solutions in porous media at high Wi and low Re. Specifically, microfluidic studies elucidate how steady and unsteady flow behavior depends on pore geometry and solution properties, and how polymer‐induced effects impact nonaqueous fluid recovery. This work thus provides new insights for polymer dynamics, non‐Newtonian fluid mechanics, and applications such as enhanced oil recovery and groundwater remediation.

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Section: Improved Fluid Recovery From Porous Mediamentioning

confidence: 69%

Pore‐Scale Flow Characterization of Polymer Solutions in Microfluidic Porous Media

Browne

Shih

Datta

2019

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103

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“…Non-Newtonian fluid sometimes exhibit time dependent velocity fluctuations in the flow fields which are reminiscent of turbulence, however they occur at very small Reynolds number, a phenomenon called elastic turbulence [24][25][26]. Elastic instabilities occur when the De number is sufficiently large, as reported experimentally for both polymeric [24,[27][28][29][30][31][32] and wormlike micellar solutions [33][34][35][36][37][38][39]. Numerical simulations also show the presence of such spatial and temporal elastic instabilities [26,[40][41][42].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 74%

“…The occurrence of such elastic instabilities in model porous media for HPAM was also shown in the work of Clarke et al [18], Kawale et al [60] and other researchers. Also for the VES solutions, recent studies of Zhao et al [61], Moss et al [55], and De et al [39] show that after a critical shear rate flow instabilities occur when flowing through a model porous medium. This elastic instability and excess flow resistance for VES is believed to be caused by the formation of transient shear induced structures [61].…”

Section: Relation Between Single and Multiphase Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, we present a comparative recovery performance of xanthan, HPAM, VES and Newtonian water solution in a similar range of Ca number. Through an analysis of the critical Ca number for desaturation and the residual droplet size distribution, we demonstrate that viscoelastic surfactants can also be used as a potential displacing fluid, along with HPAM, and that the excess recovery is related to elastic effects [39]. In case of oil field applications, the displacement experiments with polymeric fluids are mostly performed in core samples extracted from the field.…”

Section: Key Improvements Compared To Earlier Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

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Viscoelastic effects on residual oil distribution in flows through pillared microchannels

Krishnan

Schaaf

et al. 2018

Journal of Colloid and Interface Science

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We find that viscoelastic polymers and surfactant solutions can displace more oil compared to Newtonian fluids and nearly inelastic shear thinning polymers at similar Ca numbers. Beyond a critical Ca number, the size of residual oil blobs decreases significantly for viscoelastic fluids. This critical Ca number directly corresponds to flow rates where elastic instabilities occur in single phase flow, suggesting a close link between enhancement of oil recovery and appearance of elastic instabilities.

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“…Normal stresses due to shear should not be ignored as their contribution may be of the same magnitude as stresses due to extension [19]. De et al [22] numerically and experimentally studied the contribution of shear and extensional flows to the increased normal stresses of viscoelastic polymer solutions in a porous media, while Haward et al [14] investigated this contribution experimentally in a cross-slot device and they both found a large contribution of viscoelastic normal stresses in shear flow at high flow rates where elastic turbulence exists [23,24].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Signature of elastic turbulence of viscoelastic fluid flow in a single pore throat

Ekanem

Berg

et al. 2020

Phys. Rev. E

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When a viscoelastic fluid, such as an aqueous polymer solution, flows through a porous medium, the fluid undergoes a repetitive expansion and contraction as it passes from one pore to the next. Above a critical flow rate, the interaction between the viscoelastic nature of the polymer and the pore configuration results in spatial and temporal flow instabilities reminiscent of turbulentlike behavior, even though the Reynolds number Re 1. To investigate whether this is caused by many repeated pore body-pore throat sequences, or simply a consequence of the converging (diverging) nature present in a single pore throat, we performed experiments using anionic hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM) in a microfluidic flow geometry representing a single pore throat. This allows the viscoelastic fluid to be characterized at increasing flow rates using microparticle image velocimetry in combination with pressure drop measurements. The key finding is that the effect, popularly known as "elastic turbulence," occurs already in a single pore throat geometry. The critical Deborah number at which the transition in rheological flow behavior from pseudoplastic (shear thinning) to dilatant (shear thickening) strongly depends on the ionic strength, the type of cation in the anionic HPAM solution, and the nature of pore configuration. The transition towards the elastic turbulence regime was found to directly correlate with an increase in normal stresses. The topology parameter, Q f , computed from the velocity distribution, suggests that the "shear thickening" regime, where much of the elastic turbulence occurs in a single pore throat, is a consequence of viscoelastic normal stresses that cause a complex flow field. This flow field consists of extensional, shear, and rotational features around the constriction, as well as upstream and downstream of the constriction. Furthermore, this elastic turbulence regime, has high-pressure fluctuations, with a power-law decay exponent of up to |−2.1| which is higher than the Kolmogorov value for turbulence of |−5/3|.

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Flow of viscoelastic surfactants through porous media

Cited by 25 publications

References 40 publications

Pore‐Scale Flow Characterization of Polymer Solutions in Microfluidic Porous Media

Pore‐Scale Flow Characterization of Polymer Solutions in Microfluidic Porous Media

Viscoelastic effects on residual oil distribution in flows through pillared microchannels

Signature of elastic turbulence of viscoelastic fluid flow in a single pore throat

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