The Blocking Ability and Flowing Characteristics of Steady Foams in Porous Media

Abstract

Foam flow experiments were carried out to study the influence factors such as surfactant concentration, foam quality, injection rate of liquid and gas, permeability of porous media, temperature, and oil saturation on blocking ability and flowing characteristics of steady foams in porous media. Foam blocking mechanisms and flowing characteristics were summarized according to the experimental results and foam migration behavior. The results showed that the pressure distribution of flowing foams was linearly descending in porous media at steady state. The results further showed that the foam size and quality in pores along the sand pack were almost uniform, that is, foam generation and destruction gradually reached dynamic equilibrium at steady state. In porous media, the blocking ability of steady foams increased with the concentration of the foaming agent and the increase in the permeability of porous media, but the blocking ability decreased with the increase in the temperature, the shearing rate, and the oil saturation of the porous media. Foam resistance factor reached maximal value at the foam quality of 85% in porous media. List of symbols CMC Critical micelle concentration of surfactant in solution, wt% AOSAlpha olefin sulfonate, which is a kind of surfactant BS-12 Dodecyl dimethyl betaine, which is a kind of surfactant SDS Sodium dodecyl sulfate, which is a kind of surfactant V fm Foaming volume of foaming agent, ml

Comparative investigation of the static and dynamic properties of CO2 foam and N2 foam

“…The foam exhibited shear‐thinning behaviour. Most previous studies of foam flow focused on this range of foam qualities, and concluded that foam presented shear‐thinning in porous media . At higher gas flow rates, the pressure drop nearly remained constant when the foam quality was > 95 %.…”

“…Foam is a complex system in which gas is dispersed in a continuous liquid phase, which is widely used in industrial applications, such as improved oil recovery, matrix acidizing, flotation, and chemical cleaning . Foam can reduce the mobility of the displacing fluid (water or gas) in porous media and block flow paths with higher permeability or fracture .…”

“…[20][21][22][23] Some studies showed that the performances of CO 2 foam were quite different. [24][25][26] N 2 foam is always chosen as a contrast whose nature is quite different from CO 2 . In studies on steady-state flow behaviours of CO 2 foam, Kim et al [26] found a third regime in which pressure gradient decreased with the increase of liquid flow rate at a constant gas flow rate, which was different from the high-quality regime or the lowquality regime for N 2 foam.…”

Optimized polymer enhanced foam flooding for ordinary heavy oil reservoir after cross-linked polymer flooding

“…Foam flooding using foam generated by a mixture of gas (nitrogen, natural gas or other gases) and foaming agents as an oil displacement medium (Pang 2010; Chen et al 2010; Li et al 2010). A lot of works reported that enhanced foam flooding was widely used to further develop this kind of post-polymer flooding reservoirs (Li et al 2009).…”

CO2 foam flooding for improved oil recovery: Reservoir simulation models and influencing factors

“…Accordingly, injection of CO 2 foams was proposed in 1950s to overcome the problems of early gas breakthrough and poor sweep efficiency occurred in the process of pure CO 2 flooding (Bond and Holbrook, 1958). The injection of surfactant solution alternating CO 2 (SAG) and co-injection of surfactant solution and CO 2 has been used to generate foam in the reservoir and thus reduces the mobility of the gas phase and hence increases sweep efficiency (Pang, 2010;Zhang et al, 2013;Chen et al, 2014;Ren et al, 2013). A significant number of researches have been conducted on the application of CO 2 foam as a means of controlling CO 2 mobility and improving sweep efficiency in heterogeneous reservoirs (Khalil and Asghari, 2006;Sohrabi and Farzaneh, 2013;Zhang et al, 2014a).…”