Performance Evaluation and Action Mechanism Analysis of a Controllable Release Nanocapsule Profile Control and Displacement Agent

Abstract

With the acceleration in oilfield developments, reservoir advantage channels have been gradually developed. This has led to ineffective circulation in the oilfield injection system and a significant decrease in production. The profile control and displacement technology of low-permeability and heterogeneous reservoirs are in urgent need of updating. In this paper, an intelligent profile control and displacement agent is proposed. The controlled release mechanism and profile control and displacement mechanism is clarified by physical simulation experiments. The profile control agent is a nanocapsule with environmental response and controlled release. The structure of the capsule is a core–shell structure, which is composed of an amphiphilic copolymer AP-g-PNIPAAM and Janus functional particles. The surface chemical stability of the micro/nanocapsule is analyzed by a potentiometric method. The study shows that a temperature at 45 °C causes a potential change in the micro/nanocapsule, indicating that the micro/nanocapsule has a slow release at this temperature. When the temperature is in the range of 40 to 45 °C, the absorbance greatly increases; therefore, it is considered that the capsule wall LCST is about 45 °C. Heating causes the surface contraction of the capsule wall to intensify, the micropores in the capsule wall to increase, the release amount to increase and the release rate per unit time to increase. The release time increases proportionally with the increase in capsule wall thickness. When the release time is the same, an alkaline or acidic environment can improve the release rate of the nanocapsule. The effect of profile control and flooding is evaluated through different differential core models. The research shows that the controlled release micro/nanocapsule has a good environmental response and the internal components can be effectively controlled by adjusting the temperature or pH value. This research has shown that the nanocapsules have good application prospects in low-permeability heterogeneous reservoirs.

Optimized hydrophobic magnetic nanoparticles stabilized pickering emulsion for enhanced oil recovery in complex porous media of reservoir

“…The residual oil distributions after the Pickering emulsion flooding and extended waterflood in different pores were shown in Figure 10. After the Pickering emulsion flooding finished, the Pickering emulsion preliminarily achieved the plugging for large pores and the profile control for residual oil in small pores (Davoodi et al, 2022;Shi et al, 2023). The residual oil saturation in the pores only slightly decreases due to a little volume of the injected Pickering emulsion (Figures 10A, C).…”