Microfluidic comparative study of foam flow between a classical and a pH sensitive surfactant

Abstract

International audienceComparative study between foams made of a pH sensitive surfactant, nonaoxyethylene oleylether carboxylic acid (AKYPO® RO 90 VG) and a classical foaming surfactant, sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) was realised using simple microfluidic devices in the scope of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). The influence of injecting fluid parameters such as gas and foaming liquid pressure was investigated and discussed in terms of foam morphology, and lamellae stability and curvature radii. The increasing stability of AKYPO® foam film lamellae by increasing pH is classically explained by the electrostatic repulsive interaction of the double layer in foam film. In other hand, the addition of dodecanol (DOH) on SDS solution seems to have no effect on foam regime and lamellae stability except for high DOH concentration where the foam film shape becomes double bump. The behaviour difference between AKYPO® and SDS lays on the lamellae shape and stability domain. While SDS lamellae stay unchanged with increasing pressure ratio between the gas and the liquid, AKYPO® lamellae curvature radius increases which could be related to surfactants solubilities and structure. These results pointed out the relevance of solution physicochemical parameters on foam stability and flowing and help the understanding of flowing foam in EOR context

Pore-Scale Investigation and Performance Evaluation of SMART LowSal Flooding for Enhanced Oil Recovery from Matured Reservoirs Using a Lab-on-a-Chip

“…They reported that a foam generation operation could be controllable by varying the applied pressure. A similar study using a microfluidic device was carried out to understand the mechanism for foam generation and suggested that the pressure of the injection fluid is the primary mechanism for foam generation . A recent microfluidic study reported that during the brine flooding (secondary) method, oil trapped in the high-permeability zone was recovered as well as a small fraction from the low-permeability zone.…”

“…A similar study using a microfluidic device was carried out to understand the mechanism for foam generation and suggested that the pressure of the injection fluid is the primary mechanism for foam generation. 30 A recent microfluidic study reported that during the brine flooding (secondary) method, oil trapped in the high-permeability zone was recovered as well as a small fraction from the lowpermeability zone. This result showed that the sweep efficiency of the microfluidic device is lower and suitable for chemical flooding.…”

Foam Generation Through a Single Pore with Rectangular Cross-Section: Hysteretic Behavior and Geometric Limitation of the Volume Fraction of Bubbles

“…As the formation of low quality foams, witnessed for f g ≥ f g * , is very detrimental for industrial applications, a key issue is therefore to rationalize this phenomenon. Such a task is in fact necessary to screen the formulation of the surfactant solutions that are to be coinjected ,− and thus looking for increasing f g * while optimizing foam viscosity.…”

“…At the bubble scale, it allows one to directly observe the dynamic of gas snap-off or bubble–bubble pinch-off mechanisms. At the foam scale, it can be used for instance to visualize the flow of foam in micromodels with different permeabilities, , study the hysteretic behavior of foam or the dislocation dynamics in a two-dimensional crystal foam flowing in a tapered channel, control the foamability of surfactants, or investigate the destabilization, propagation, and generation of foam during the movement of crude oil in heterogeneous model porous media . The geometry of the single pore used in our study is similar to that of a planar flow focusing device .…”

Characterization of foam flowing in a granular medium in the presence of oil by small angle neutron scattering

“…When the foam is generated, an important increase of the pressure gradient is observed, resulting from the increase of effective gas viscosity and a IFP Energies nouvelles, 1 et 4 avenue de Bois-Préau, 92852 Rueil-Malmaison, France * E-mail: raphael.poryles@yahoo.fr and loic.barre@ifpen.fr the decrease of relative permeability leading to a reduced mobility factor 8,11,12 . Many studies have been performed in quasi 2D Hele-Shaw cells and micromodels to observe the dynamics of the foam flow at the bubble scale [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] . Those experiments have shown many results including that bubbles can be trapped inside a single pore and that fragmentation and coalescence processes can occur.…”