Polymer Flooding Enhanced Oil Recovery Evaluated with Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Relaxation Time Measurements

Li, Ming; Romero‐Zerón, Laura; Marica, Florea; Balcom, Bruce J.

doi:10.1021/acs.energyfuels.7b00030

Cited by 32 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…As a result, the conditions under which these mechanisms may arise are unknown. X‐ray scanning and nuclear magnetic resonance measurements can provide valuable information of 3D structure and macroscopic flow, but cannot resolve pore‐scale flow details with sufficient spatial or temporal resolution . Flow imaging in mesoscale model systems provides some key insights into the flow structure, but such devices cannot recapitulate the small length scales that characterize real‐world porous media ( Table 1 ).…”

Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…scanning and nuclear magnetic resonance measurements can provide valuable information of 3D structure and macroscopic flow, but cannot resolve pore-scale flow details with sufficient spatial or temporal resolution. [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35] Flow imaging in mesoscale model systems provides some key insights into the flow structure, [36][37][38][39] but such devices cannot recapitulate the small length scales that characterize real-world porous media ( Table 1). As a result, these approaches are often subject to inertial effects, which typically do not arise during EOR and groundwater remediation and instead complicate the interpretation of laboratory measurements.…”

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confidence: 99%

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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: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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

Browne

Shih

Datta

2019

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103

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“…MRI is a well-known technique in medical diagnosis but has also been applied to study food, animals, fossils, mummies and pottery, as well as to the mapping of structures in material science. In addition to these applications, MRI is increasingly used during laboratory rock-core-plug analysis, to visualize the distribution of fluid phases during dynamic processes [4][5][6][7]. It can also provide three-dimensional mapping of particle sorting and configuration of grains and fractures in natural sediments [1,8,9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of Mineral Composition on Transverse Relaxation Time Distributions and MR Imaging of Tight Rocks from Offshore Ireland

et al. 2020

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In this paper, we investigate the effect of magnetic field strength on the transverse relaxation time constant (T2) in six distinct core plugs from four different rock types (three sandstones, one basalt, one volcanic tuff and one siltstone), retrieved from offshore Ireland. The CPMG pulse-sequence was used at two different magnetic field strengths: high-field at 4.70 T and low-field at 0.28 T. Axial images of the core plugs were also acquired with the RAREst sequence at high magnetic field strength. Thin-sections of the core plugs were prepared for optical imaging and SEM analysis, and provided qualitative information on the porosity and quantification of the elemental composition of the rock material. The content of iron varied from 4 wt. % to close to zero in the rock samples. Nevertheless, the effective T2 distributions obtained at low-field were used to successfully predict the porosity of the core plugs. Severe signal attenuations from internal magnetic gradients resulted in an underestimation of the porosity at high-field. No definitive trend was identified on the evolution of discrete relaxation time components between magnetic field strengths. The low-field measurements demonstrate that NMR is a powerful quantitative tool for petrophysical rock analysis as compared to thin-section analysis. The results of this study are of interest to the research community who characterizes natural gas hydrates in tight heterogeneous core plugs, and who typically relies on MR imaging to distinguish between solid hydrates and fluid phases. It further exemplifies the importance of selecting appropriate magnetic field strengths when employing NMR/MRI for porosity calculation in tight rock.

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“…Pye and Sandiford [1,2] first noted that the mobility of brine solution could be substantially reduced when the polymer was added. Until now, the researches concerning polymer flooding have matured enough [3][4][5][6], the mechanism of conformance control and mobility control has also been clearly understood by laboratory experiment [7]. The permeability of the reservoir decreased by increasing the viscosity of the water phase and the retention of polymer in the reservoir.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental Study on the Physical Performance and Flow Behavior of Decorated Polyacrylamide for Enhanced Oil Recovery

Liang

Liu

et al. 2019

Energies

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With the rapid growth of energy consumption, enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods are continually emerging, the most effective and widely used was polymer flooding. However, the shortcomings were gradually exposed. A novel decorated polyacrylamide might be a better alternative than polymer. In this work, the molecular structure and the properties reflecting the viscosity of decorated polyacrylamide, interfacial tension, and emulsification were examined. In order to better understand the interactions between decorated polyacrylamide and oil as well as the displacement mechanism, the displacement experiment were conducted in the etched-glass microscale model. Moreover, the coreflooding comparison experiments between decorated polyacrylamide and polymer were performed to investigate the displacement effect. The statistical analysis showed that the decorated polyacrylamide has excellent characteristics of salt tolerance, viscosity stability, and viscosification like polymer. Besides, the ability to reduce the interfacial tension in order 10 −1 and emulsification, which were more similar to surfactant. Therefore, the decorated polyacrylamide was a multifunctional polymer. The displacement process captured by camera illustrated that the decorated polyacrylamide flooded oil mainly by means of 'pull and drag', 'entrainment', and 'bridging', based on the mechanism of viscosifying, emulsifying, and viscoelasticity. The results of the coreflooding experiment indicated that the recovery of decorated polyacrylamide can be improved by approximately 11-16% after water flooding when the concentration was more than 800 mg/L, which was higher than that of conventional polymer flooding. It should be mentioned that a new injection mode of 'concentration reduction multi-slug' was first proposed, and it obtained an exciting result of increasing oil production and decreasing water-cut, the effect of conformance control was more significant.

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Polymer Flooding Enhanced Oil Recovery Evaluated with Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Relaxation Time Measurements

Cited by 32 publications

References 51 publications

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

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

Effect of Mineral Composition on Transverse Relaxation Time Distributions and MR Imaging of Tight Rocks from Offshore Ireland

Experimental Study on the Physical Performance and Flow Behavior of Decorated Polyacrylamide for Enhanced Oil Recovery

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