The Impact of Nanoparticles Adsorption and Transport on Wettability Alteration of Water Wet Berea Sandstone

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shidong Li ◽  
Ole Torsæter
Keyword(s):  
Wettability Alteration ◽  
Berea Sandstone ◽  
The Impact

The Impact of Nanoparticles Adsorption and Transport on Wettability Alteration of Intermediate Wet Berea Sandstone

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shidong Li ◽  
Ole Torsæter
Keyword(s):  
Pressure Drop ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Fluid Pressure ◽  
Injection Pressure ◽  
Wettability Alteration ◽  
Colloidal Nanoparticles ◽  
Berea Sandstone ◽  
Nano Structure ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Impact

AbstractNanoparticles as part of nanotechnology have drawn the attention for its great potential of increasing oil recovery. From authors' previous studies (Li et al., 2013a), wettability alteration was proposed as one of the main Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) mechanisms for nanoparticles fluid, as adsorption of nanoparticles on pore walls leads to wettability alteration of reservoir. We conducted a series of wettability measurement experiments for aged intermediate-wet Berea sandstone, where the core plugs were treated by different concentration and type of nanoparticles fluid. Nanoparticles transport experiments also were performed for core plugs with injection of varying concentration and type of nanoparticles fluid. Pressure drop across the core plug during injection was recorded to evaluate nanoparticles adsorption and retention inside core, as well as desorption during brine postflush. Both hydrophilic silica nano-structure particles and hydrophilic silica colloidal nanoparticles were utilized in above two experiments.The results of wettability alteration experiments indicated that hydrophilic nanoparticles have ability of making intermediate-wet Berea sandstone to be more water wet, and basically the higher concentration the more water wet will be. And different type of nanoparticles has different effect on the wettability alteration process. For nanoparticles transport experiments, the results showed that the nanoparticles undergo both adsorption and desorption as well as retention during injection. Pressure drop curves showed that absorption and retention of nano-structure particles inside core was significant while colloidal nanoparticles did not adsorb much. Permeability impairment was observed during nano-structure particles fluid injection, but on the contrary colloidal nanoparticles dispersion injection made core more permeable.

Phase Behavior, Wettability Alteration, and Oil Recovery of Low-Salinity Surfactant Solutions in Carbonate Reservoirs

SPE Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (04) ◽  
pp. 1784-1802 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sepideh Veiskarami ◽  
Arezou Jafari ◽  
Aboozar Soleymanzadeh
Keyword(s):  
Phase Behavior ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Wettability Alteration ◽  
Study Phase ◽  
Low Salinity ◽  
Angle Measurements ◽  
Contact Angle Measurements ◽  
Favorable State ◽  
Phase Behaviors ◽  
The Impact

Summary Recent investigations have shown that treatment with injected brine composition can improve oil production. Various mechanisms have been suggested to go through the phenomenon; nevertheless, wettability alteration is one of the most commonly proposed mechanisms in the literature. Wettability alteration of the porous media toward a more favorable state reduces the capillary pressure, consequently contributing to the oil detachment from pore walls. In this study, phase behavior, oil recovery, and wettability alteration toward a more favorable state were investigated using a combination of formulations of surfactant and modified low-salinity (LS) brine. Phase behaviors of these various formulations were examined experimentally through observations on relative phase volumes. Experiments were performed in various water/oil ratios (WORs) in the presence of two different oil samples, namely C1 and C2. These experiments were conducted to clarify the impact of each affecting parameter; in particular, the impact of resin and asphaltene of crude oil on the performance of LS surfactant (LSS) flooding. Hereafter, the optimal formulation was flooded into the oil-wet micromodel. Optimum formulations increased the capillary number more than four orders of magnitude higher than that under formation brine (FB) flooding, thus causing oil recovery rates of 61 and 67% for oil samples C1 and C2, respectively. Likewise, the wettability alteration potential of optimized formulations was studied through contact angle measurements. Results showed that LS and LSS solutions could act as possible wettability alternating methods for oil-wet carbonate rocks. Using the optimum formulation resulted in a wettability alteration index (WAI) of 0.66 for sample C1 and 0.49 for sample C2, while using LS brine itself ended in 0.51 and 0.29 for oil samples C1 and C2, respectively.

Multiphase Flow Under Heterogeneous Wettability Conditions Studied by Special Core Analysis and Pore-Scale Imaging

SPE Journal ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (03) ◽  
pp. 1234-1247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuangmei Zou ◽  
Ryan T. Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Multiphase Flow ◽  
Relative Permeability ◽  
Flow Regimes ◽  
Wettability Alteration ◽  
Core Analysis ◽  
Pore Scale ◽  
End Effect ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Capillary End Effect ◽  
Special Core Analysis

Summary Wettability is a major factor that influences multiphase flow in porous media. Numerous experimental studies have reported wettability effects on relative permeability. Laboratory determination for the impact of wettability on relative permeability continues to be a challenge because of difficulties with quantifying wettability alteration, correcting for capillary-end effect, and observing pore-scale flow regimes during core-scale experiments. Herein, we studied the impact of wettability alteration on relative permeability by integrating laboratory steady-state experiments with in-situ high-resolution imaging. We characterized wettability alteration at the core scale by conventional laboratory methods and used history matching for relative permeability determination to account for capillary-end effect. We found that because of wettability alteration from water-wet to mixed-wet conditions, oil relative permeability decreased while water relative permeability slightly increased. For the mixed-wet condition, the pore-scale data demonstrated that the interaction of viscous and capillary forces resulted in viscous-dominated flow, whereby nonwetting phase was able to flow through the smaller regions of the pore space. Overall, this study demonstrates how special-core-analysis (SCAL) techniques can be coupled with pore-scale imaging to provide further insights on pore-scale flow regimes during dynamic coreflooding experiments.

Impact of clay type and water composition on low salinity water injection – visualisation approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tammy Amirian ◽  
Manouchehr Haghighi
Keyword(s):  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Wettability Alteration ◽  
Oil Film ◽  
Low Salinity ◽  
Water Composition ◽  
Low Salinity Water ◽  
Monovalent Ions ◽  
Salinity Water ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Clay Type

Low salinity water (LSW) injection as an enhanced oil recovery method has attracted much attention in the past two decades. Previously, it was found that the presence of clay such as kaolinite and water composition like the nature of cations affect the enhancement of oil recovery under LSW injection. In this study, a pore-scale visualisation approach was developed using a 2D glass micromodel to investigate the impact of clay type and water composition on LSW injection. The glass micromodels were coated by kaolinite and illite. A meniscus moving mechanism was observed and the oil–water interface moved through narrow throats to large bodies, displacing the wetting phase (oil phase). In the presence of kaolinite, the effect of LSW injection was reflected in the change to the wettability with a transition towards water-wetness in the large sections of the pore walls. The advance of the stable water front left behind an oil film on the oil-wet portions of pore walls; however, in water-wet surfaces, the interface moved towards the surface and replaced the oil film. As a result of wettability alteration towards a water-wet state, the capillary forces were not dominant throughout the system and the water–oil menisci displaced oil in large portions of very narrow channels. This LSW effect was not observed in the presence of illite. With regard to the water composition effect, systems containing divalent cations like Ca2+ showed the same extent of recovery as those containing only monovalent ions. The observation indicates a significant role of cation exchange in wettability alteration. Fines migration was insignificant in the observations.

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