Microfluidic Study of Foams Flow for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR)

Abstract

IFP Energies nouvelles International Conference Rencontres Scientifiques d'IFP Energies nouvellesRe´sume´-É tude en microfluidique de l'e´coulement de mousses pour la re´cupe´ration assiste´e -Cet article pre´sente, dans le cadre de la re´cupe´ration assiste´e du pe´trole (EOR Enhanced Oil Recovery), une e´tude expe´rimentale avec des dispositifs microfluidiques concernant les e´coulements de mousse dans des canaux de diffe´rentes ge´ome´tries. Deux processus diffe´rents de formation de mousse ont e´te´e´tudie´s. Le premier correspond a`la co-injection de gaz et d'eau a`travers une jonction en croix produisant une mousse monodisperse. Le second correspond a`la fragmentation de grosses bulles par un milieu poreux, processus de formation de mousse simulant des e´coulements multiphasiques dans des roches. La formation de mousse est controˆle´e et caracte´rise´e en variant les pressions applique´es d'eau et de gaz. Nous avons e´galement utilise´un microsyste`me avec deux perme´abilite´s permettant la mise en e´vidence de la redirection de la phase continue vers les canaux de faible perme´abilite´. Ces observations sont importantes pour une meilleure compre´hension des phe´nome`nes implique´s dans les processus EOR ainsi que pour de´terminer les donne´es d'entre´e pertinentes pour les simulateurs d'e´coulement.Abstract -Microfluidic Study of Foams Flow for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) -In this paper, we report an experimental study of foam flow in different channel geometries using microfluidic devices in the framework of EOR (Enhanced Oil Recovery). Two different processes of foam formation are studied. The first one corresponds to co-injection of gas and water through a cross junction which gives rise to a monodisperse foam. The second one corresponds to the fragmentation of large bubbles by a porous media, a foam formation process simulating multiphase flows in rocks. The foam formation is completely controlled and characterized varying both the water and gas pressure applied. We also use a microdevice with two permeabilities that permits to highlight the diversion of the continuous phase in the low permeability channels. The observations are important for a better understanding of the implied phenomena in EOR as well as to determine pertinent data to feed flow simulators.

Microfluidics Mediated Production of Foams for Biomedical Applications

“…Foams can find a variety of applications in different industrial sectors [2] depending on their type. Liquid foams are widely used in detergents [3][4][5], food [6], cosmetics [7][8][9][10], fire-fighting [11], oil recovery [12], and pharmaceutical applications [7,[13][14][15][16][17][18]. Solid foams can find applications as insulation materials [19] and as packing and cushioning materials [20].…”

“…The recent progress of technology has allowed the development of advanced fabrication methods of scaffolds, such as electrospinning [39], 3D printing [40], and rapid-prototyping [41]. In parallel, the emergence of microfluidics offered a new way to produce scaffolds, increasing the achievable resolution by modulating self-assembled liquid foams' architectures and compositions, thereby improving their performances [12,[42][43][44][45]. From that perspective, microfluidics, by handling small quantities of fluids, can generate a monodisperse collection of bubbles that can be scaled down to the length of a few microns, and potentially even lower [46].…”

Microfluidics approach to investigate foam hysteretic behaviour

“…Aqueous foams are dispersions of gas bubbles in a liquid continuous phase. They are used in a wide range of applications from enhanced oil recovery (EOR) (Quennouz et al 2014;Guo and Aryana 2016;Yekeen et al 2018) to food industry (Skurtys, Bouchon and Aguilera 2008;Laporte et al 2016) and biological applications such as biocompatible scaffolds (Chung et al 2009;Costantini et al 2015;Andrieux et al 2017).…”

Design and analysis of different models of microfluidic devices evaluated in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) assays

“…Mobility ratios less than 1 indicate positive displacement. Foam has been used to lower mobility ratio as it diminishes mobility by reducing gas relative permeability k rD and by increasing the effective viscosity μ D [7,8].…”