scholarly journals High-Temperature Core Flood Investigation of Nanocellulose as a Green Additive for Enhanced Oil Recovery

Nanomaterials ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 665 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aadland ◽  
Jakobsen ◽  
Heggset ◽  
Long-Sanouiller ◽  
Simon ◽  
...  

Recent studies have discovered a substantial viscosity increase of aqueous cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) dispersions upon heat aging at temperatures above 90 °C. This distinct change in material properties at very low concentrations in water has been proposed as an active mechanism for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), as highly viscous fluid may improve macroscopic sweep efficiencies and mitigate viscous fingering. A high-temperature (120 °C) core flood experiment was carried out with 1 wt. % CNC in low salinity brine on a 60 cm-long sandstone core outcrop initially saturated with crude oil. A flow rate corresponding to 24 h per pore volume was applied to ensure sufficient viscosification time within the porous media. The total oil recovery was 62.2%, including 1.2% oil being produced during CNC flooding. Creation of local log-jams inside the porous media appears to be the dominant mechanism for additional oil recovery during nano flooding. The permeability was reduced by 89.5% during the core flood, and a thin layer of nanocellulose film was observed at the inlet of the core plug. CNC fluid and core flood effluent was analyzed using atomic force microscopy (AFM), particle size analysis, and shear rheology. The effluent was largely unchanged after passing through the core over a time period of 24 h. After the core outcrop was rinsed, a micro computed tomography (micro-CT) was used to examine heterogeneity of the core. The core was found to be homogeneous.

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Noraishah Binti Othman ◽  
Ismail Mohd Saaid ◽  
Afaque Ahmed ◽  
Nazrul Hizam Yusof ◽  
Roslan Yahya ◽  
...  

An intervention of radiotracer technology in the EOR program has been initiated using commercial core-flood set up. A commercial type of Berea core is used throughout the experiment. 99mTc is chosen as a radioactive tracer for this experiment, which has a half-life of 6 hours and emits gamma rays’ energy of 0.104MeV. It is a liquid radiotracer with the activity of 10GBq (270mCi), eluted and prepared by Institute Cancer of Malaysia (IKN) before transporting it to the laboratory at Centre of Research in Enhanced Oil Recovery (COREOR), Universiti Teknologi Petronas. The experiment was conducted after 3.5 half-lives. Thus the activity has reduced to approximately (1.48GBq) 40mCi during injection inside the system. The results can be used to assist the reservoir engineer in determining the exact water-tracer breakthrough, localize the location of water-tracer concerning time, and determine the residence time distribution and mean residence time of the core flood where the hydrodynamics of the flow can be predicted. Moreover, the introduction of radiotracer inside the core flood rig can be translated as secondary oil recovery. The idea is to integrate radiotracer technology into the existing commercial core flood set up (FES350) to track the movement of fluid during water-flooding operation. Besides, it can be considered as the first interaction of radiotracer in the enhanced oil recovery application studies in Malaysia.


Author(s):  
Jianlong Xiu ◽  
Tianyuan Wang ◽  
Ying Guo ◽  
Qingfeng Cui ◽  
Lixin Huang ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cai Hongyan ◽  
Cheng Jie ◽  
Fan Jian ◽  
Luan Hexin ◽  
Wang Qing ◽  
...  

Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 4212
Author(s):  
Mohamed Said ◽  
Bashirul Haq ◽  
Dhafer Al Shehri ◽  
Mohammad Mizanur Rahman ◽  
Nasiru Salahu Muhammed ◽  
...  

Tertiary oil recovery, commonly known as enhanced oil recovery (EOR), is performed when secondary recovery is no longer economically viable. Polymer flooding is one of the EOR methods that improves the viscosity of injected water and boosts oil recovery. Xanthan gum is a relatively cheap biopolymer and is suitable for oil recovery at limited temperatures and salinities. This work aims to modify xanthan gum to improve its viscosity for high-temperature and high-salinity reservoirs. The xanthan gum was reacted with acrylic acid in the presence of a catalyst in order to form xanthan acrylate. The chemical structure of the xanthan acrylate was verified by FT-IR and NMR analysis. The discovery hybrid rheometer (DHR) confirmed that the viscosity of the modified xanthan gum was improved at elevated temperatures, which was reflected in the core flood experiment. Two core flooding experiments were conducted using six-inch sandstone core plugs and Arabian light crude oil. The first formulation—the xanthan gum with 3% NaCl solution—recovered 14% of the residual oil from the core. In contrast, the modified xanthan gum with 3% NaCl solution recovered about 19% of the residual oil, which was 5% higher than the original xanthan gum. The xanthan gum acrylate is therefore more effective at boosting tertiary oil recovery in the sandstone core.


Nanomaterials ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 1296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reidun C. Aadland ◽  
Salem Akarri ◽  
Ellinor B. Heggset ◽  
Kristin Syverud ◽  
Ole Torsæter

Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) and 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl (TEMPO)-oxidized cellulose nanofibrils (T-CNFs) were tested as enhanced oil recovery (EOR) agents through core floods and microfluidic experiments. Both particles were mixed with low salinity water (LSW). The core floods were grouped into three parts based on the research objectives. In Part 1, secondary core flood using CNCs was compared to regular water flooding at fixed conditions, by reusing the same core plug to maintain the same pore structure. CNCs produced 5.8% of original oil in place (OOIP) more oil than LSW. For Part 2, the effect of injection scheme, temperature, and rock wettability was investigated using CNCs. The same trend was observed for the secondary floods, with CNCs performing better than their parallel experiment using LSW. Furthermore, the particles seemed to perform better under mixed-wet conditions. Additional oil (2.9–15.7% of OOIP) was produced when CNCs were injected as a tertiary EOR agent, with more incremental oil produced at high temperature. In the final part, the effect of particle type was studied. T-CNFs produced significantly more oil compared to CNCs. However, the injection of T-CNF particles resulted in a steep increase in pressure, which never stabilized. Furthermore, a filter cake was observed at the core face after the experiment was completed. Microfluidic experiments showed that both T-CNF and CNC nanofluids led to a better sweep efficiency compared to low salinity water flooding. T-CNF particles showed the ability to enhance the oil recovery by breaking up events and reducing the trapping efficiency of the porous medium. A higher flow rate resulted in lower oil recovery factors and higher remaining oil connectivity. Contact angle and interfacial tension measurements were conducted to understand the oil recovery mechanisms. CNCs altered the interfacial tension the most, while T-CNFs had the largest effect on the contact angle. However, the changes were not significant enough for them to be considered primary EOR mechanisms.


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