Storage of CO2 and Coal Fly Ash using Pickering Foam for Enhanced Oil Recovery

Abstract CO2 foams have been used for a long time for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and carbon capture, utilization, and storage. Note that conventional CO2 foam focuses on mobility control and storage of bare CO2. However, this technology has suffered from low storage efficiency and EOR because of foam instability. In this study, the geological storage of CO2 and coal fly ash (CFA) using Pickering foam for EOR was explored. The aim is to obtain an inexpensive method for EOR and storage of greenhouse gases and atmospheric pollutants. The Pickering foam was prepared using Waring blender method. The experiments were conducted to evaluate CO2/liquid interface enhancement by measuring the interfacial tension and interfacial viscoelastic modulus. As per the heterogeneous sandpack flooding experiments, the profile control capacity and the performance of oil displacement using CO2 foam enhanced by CFA were investigated. The amount of storage from dynamic aspects of CO2 and CFA was measured to demonstrate the storage law. The stability of aqueous foam was improved significantly after the addition of CFA. The half-life time of foam stabilized by CFA particles increased by more than about 11 times than that of foam without CFA particles. The interfacial dilatational viscoelastic modulus of CO2/foaming solution increased with CFA particle concentration increasing, indicating the interface transformed from liquid-like to solid-like. Flooding experiments in heterogeneous porous media showed that more produced fluid was displaced from the relatively low-permeability sandpack after the injection of CO2 foam with CFA. The oil recovery by CFA stabilized foam was improved by ~28.3% than that of foam without CFA particles. And the sequestration of CO2 in heterogeneous porous media was enhanced with the addition of CFA to CO2 foam, and the CFA stabilized foam displayed a strong resistance to water erosion for the storage of CO2 and CFA. This work introduces a win–win method for EOR and storage of CO2 and atmospheric pollutant particles. CFA from coal combustion was used as an enhancer for CO2 foam, which improved the interfacial dilatational viscoelasticity of foam film and the dynamic storage of CO2. Furthermore, the storage of CO2 and CFA contributed to improvement in sweep efficiency, and thus EOR.

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A Review on CO2 Foam for Mobility Control: Enhanced Oil Recovery

ICIPEG 2016 ◽

10.1007/978-981-10-3650-7_17 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 205-215

Author(s):

Shehzad Ahmed ◽

Khaled Abdalla Elraies ◽

Isa M. Tan ◽

Mudassar Mumtaz

Keyword(s):

Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽

Oil Recovery ◽

Mobility Control ◽

Co2 Foam

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Experimental investigation on plugging and transport characteristics of Pore-Scale microspheres in heterogeneous porous media for enhanced oil recovery

Journal of Dispersion Science and Technology ◽

10.1080/01932691.2020.1729796 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-11

Author(s):

Dai-jun Du ◽

Wan-fen Pu ◽

Fayang Jin ◽

Dong-Dong Hou ◽

Le Shi

Keyword(s):

Experimental Investigation ◽

Porous Media ◽

Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽

Oil Recovery ◽

Heterogeneous Porous Media ◽

Pore Scale

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Experimental study of polymer injection enhanced oil recovery in homogeneous and heterogeneous porous media using glass-type micromodels

Journal of Petroleum Exploration and Production Technology ◽

10.1007/s13202-018-0492-x ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 627-637 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Seyed Javad Hosseini ◽

Jalal Foroozesh

Keyword(s):

Experimental Study ◽

Porous Media ◽

Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽

Oil Recovery ◽

Heterogeneous Porous Media ◽

Polymer Injection ◽

Glass Type

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Surfactant Prefloods During Carbon Dioxide Foam Injection for Integrated Enhanced Oil Recovery in Fractured Oil-Wet Carbonates

SPE Journal ◽

10.2118/190168-pa ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 24 (03) ◽

pp. 1139-1153 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

S. B. Fredriksen ◽

Z. P. Alcorn ◽

A.. Frøland ◽

A.. Viken ◽

A. U. Rognmo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Carbon Dioxide ◽

Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽

Oil Recovery ◽

Surfactant Solution ◽

Mobility Control ◽

Threshold Pressure ◽

Oil Saturation ◽

Co2 Foam ◽

Matrix Blocks ◽

Carbon Dioxide Co2

Summary An integrated enhanced-oil-recovery (EOR) (IEOR) approach is used in fractured oil-wet carbonate core plugs where surfactant prefloods reduce interfacial tension (IFT), alter wettability, and establish conditions for capillary continuity to improve tertiary carbon dioxide (CO2) foam injections. Surfactant prefloods can alter the wettability of oil-wet fractures toward neutral/weakly-water-wet conditions that in turn reduce the capillary threshold pressure for foam generation in matrix and create capillary contact between matrix blocks. The capillary connectivity can transmit differential pressure across fractures and increase both mobility control and viscous displacement during CO2-foam injections. Outcrop core plugs were aged to reflect conditions of an ongoing CO2-foam injection field pilot in west Texas. Surfactants were screened for their ability to change the wetting state from oil-wet using the Darcy-scale Amott-Harvey index. A cationic surfactant was the most effective in shifting wettability from an Amott-Harvey index of –0.56 to 0.09. Second waterfloods after surfactant treatments and before tertiary CO2-foam injections recovered an additional 4 to 11% of original oil in place (OIP) (OOIP), verifying the favorable effects of a surfactant preflood to mobilize oil. Tertiary CO2-foam injections revealed the significance of a critical oil-saturation value below which CO2 and surfactant solution were able to enter the oil-wet matrix and generate foam for EOR. The results reveal that a surfactant preflood can reverse the wettability of oil-wet fracture surfaces, lower IFT, and lower capillary threshold pressure to reduce oil saturation to less than a critical value to generate stable CO2 foam.

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Probing Methane Foam Transport in Heterogeneous Porous Media: An Experimental and Numerical Case Study of Permeability-Dependent Rheology and Fluid Diversion at Field Scale

SPE Journal ◽

10.2118/199898-pa ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 25 (04) ◽

pp. 1697-1710 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Yongchao Zeng ◽

Ridhwan Z. Kamarul Bahrim ◽

J. A. W. M. Groot ◽

Sebastien Vincent-Bonnieu ◽

Jeroen Groenenboom ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Porous Media ◽

Oil Recovery ◽

Apparent Viscosity ◽

Heterogeneous Porous Media ◽

Mobility Control ◽

Low Permeability ◽

Field Scale ◽

Rock Permeability ◽

Foam Flooding ◽

Foam Rheology

Summary This paper advances the understanding of foam transport in heterogeneous porous media for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Specifically, we investigate the dependence of methane foam rheology on the rock permeability at the laboratory scale and then extend the observations to the field scale with foam modeling techniques and reservoir simulation tools. The oil recovery efficiency of conventional gasflooding, waterflooding, and water-alternating-gas (WAG) processes can be limited by constraints such as bypassing effects (including both viscous fingering and channeling mechanisms) and gravity override. The problem can be more severe if the reservoir is highly fractured or heterogeneously layered in the direction of flow. Foam offers the promise to address the three issues simultaneously by better controlling the mobility of injected fluids. However, limited literature data of foam-flooding experiments were reported using actual reservoir cores at harsh conditions. In this paper, a series of methane (CH4) foam-flooding experiments were conducted in three different actual cores from a proprietary reservoir at an elevated temperature. It is found that foam rheology is significantly correlated with the rock permeability. To quantify the mobility control offered by foam, we calculated the apparent viscosity on the basis of the measured pressure drop at steady state. Interestingly, the apparent viscosity was found to be selectively higher in the high-permeability cores compared with that in the low-permeability zones. We parameterized our system using a texture-implicit-local-equilibrium model (STARS™ simulator, Computer Modelling Group, Calgary, Alberta, Canada) to illustrate the dependence of foam parameters on rock permeability. In addition, we created a two-layered model reservoir using an in-house simulator called modular reservoir simulator (MoReS; Shell Research, Rijswijk, The Netherlands) to elucidate the role of different driving forces for fluid diversion at the field level. We took into consideration the combined effect of gravitational, viscous force, and capillary forces in our simulation. We show that the gravitational forces prevent the gas from sweeping the lower part of the reservoir. However, the poor sweep can be ameliorated by intermittent surfactant injection to generate foam. In addition, the capillary force which hinders the gas (nonwetting phase) from entering the low-permeability region can be effectively leveraged to redistribute the fluids in the porous media, resulting in better sweep efficiency. We conclude that foam if properly designed can effectively improve the conformance of the WAG EOR in the presence of reservoir heterogeneity.

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Core-Based Evaluation of Associative Polymers as Enhanced Oil Recovery Agents in Oil-Wet Formations

Journal of Energy Resources Technology ◽

10.1115/1.4038848 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 140 (3) ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Reza Askarinezhad ◽

Dimitrios Georgios Hatzignatiou ◽

Arne Stavland

Keyword(s):

Porous Media ◽

Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽

Oil Recovery ◽

High Mobility ◽

Oil Production ◽

Mobility Control ◽

Polymer Injection ◽

Remaining Oil ◽

Associative Polymer ◽

Mobility Reduction

Linear coreflood experiments are performed at 60 °C to test the effectiveness of a low molecular weight associative polymer as a displacing agent, and its ability to enhance oil recovery on chemically treated oil-wet Berea cores. Polymer injection tests revealed high mobility reductions (resistance factor (RF)) and reduced remaining oil saturations. Results obtained suggest that the incremental oil production is due to the high mobility reduction, as reported previously for water-wet porous media. The reduced remaining oil saturation is a function of the injected associative polymer treatment volume. Polymer mobility reduction is highly affected by the injected polymer velocity; this reduction is observed to be more significant at the lower velocity spectrum. Therefore, the established incremental oil production, even at reduced polymer injection rates (lower capillary numbers), could be explained by the increased mobility reduction. A correlation for the velocity-dependent mobility reduction is developed. Results are in agreement with previously reported ones in water-wet media and related to the enhanced oil recovery (EOR) nature of the injected associative polymer as opposed to the traditional mobility control of other polymer types. During injection, a column of oil-polymer emulsion is formed gradually in the separator causing operational difficulties and introducing produced fluid measurement (and core fluid saturations) uncertainties. Produced oil/water emulsion polymer volume content is used to correct overestimated oil production attributed to measurement uncertainties. Real-time resistivity measurements could also be a valuable tool for both fluids saturation monitoring and improved core fluids saturation evaluation in flooded porous media.

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