scholarly journals Synthesis and Use of Janus SiO2 Nanoparticles for Formulating Model Heavy Oil Macroemulsions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Fabio Mercado ◽  
Luz Marina Ballesteros-Rueda ◽  
Cindy C. Lizarazo-Gómez ◽  
Brucxen E. Núñez-Rodríguez ◽  
Edward Arenas-Calderón ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Crude Oil ◽  
Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Rheological Behavior ◽  
Vacuum Gas Oil ◽  
Size Distributions ◽  
Gas Oil ◽  
Janus Nanoparticles ◽  
Droplet Size Distributions ◽  
Oil Type

<p>Janus nanoparticles have applications in many fields. Particularly, the oil industry is interested in applying them for enhanced oil recovery. Within this context, there is a need to understand the influence of the factors involved in the formulation of crude oil type emulsions over their properties and rheological behavior. In this contribution, spherical SiO<sub>2</sub> Janus nanoparticles of two different sizes were synthesized and used as surfactants for the formulation of aqueous emulsions with two model oils: namely, squalane and vacuum gas oil. Factorial experiments were designed and made to analyze the effects of the particle size of the Janus nanoparticles, the water content, the emulsification energy, and of the second and third order interactions between these variables over the droplet size distributions, polydispersity, and rheological profiles of the emulsions. On the one hand, it was found that the used Janus nanoparticles produced either water in oil (for vacuum gas oil) or oil in water (for squalane) depending on the chemistry of the oil phase. On the other hand, it was demonstrated that non-additive factors play an important role over the properties of the emulsions; especially in the case of the water in oil ones. These effects also implied non-additive correlations between the droplet size distributions of the emulsions and their rheological behavior. Therefore, this work demonstrates that simpler linear relationships do not suffice for finding the best conditions for formulating crude oil type emulsions aimed for applications such as enhanced oil recovery.</p>

scholarly journals Synthesis and Use of Janus SiO2 Nanoparticles for Formulating Model Heavy Oil Macroemulsions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Fabio Mercado ◽  
Luz Marina Ballesteros-Rueda ◽  
Cindy C. Lizarazo-Gómez ◽  
Brucxen E. Núñez-Rodríguez ◽  
Edward Arenas-Calderón ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Crude Oil ◽  
Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Rheological Behavior ◽  
Vacuum Gas Oil ◽  
Size Distributions ◽  
Gas Oil ◽  
Janus Nanoparticles ◽  
Droplet Size Distributions ◽  
Oil Type

<p>Janus nanoparticles have applications in many fields. Particularly, the oil industry is interested in applying them for enhanced oil recovery. Within this context, there is a need to understand the influence of the factors involved in the formulation of crude oil type emulsions over their properties and rheological behavior. In this contribution, spherical SiO<sub>2</sub> Janus nanoparticles of two different sizes were synthesized and used as surfactants for the formulation of aqueous emulsions with two model oils: namely, squalane and vacuum gas oil. Factorial experiments were designed and made to analyze the effects of the particle size of the Janus nanoparticles, the water content, the emulsification energy, and of the second and third order interactions between these variables over the droplet size distributions, polydispersity, and rheological profiles of the emulsions. On the one hand, it was found that the used Janus nanoparticles produced either water in oil (for vacuum gas oil) or oil in water (for squalane) depending on the chemistry of the oil phase. On the other hand, it was demonstrated that non-additive factors play an important role over the properties of the emulsions; especially in the case of the water in oil ones. These effects also implied non-additive correlations between the droplet size distributions of the emulsions and their rheological behavior. Therefore, this work demonstrates that simpler linear relationships do not suffice for finding the best conditions for formulating crude oil type emulsions aimed for applications such as enhanced oil recovery.</p>

Interfacial Viscoelasticity of Crude Oil/Brine: An Alternative Enhanced-Oil-Recovery Mechanism in Smart Waterflooding

SPE Journal ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (03) ◽  
pp. 803-818 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehrnoosh Moradi Bidhendi ◽  
Griselda Garcia-Olvera ◽  
Brendon Morin ◽  
John S. Oakey ◽  
Vladimir Alvarado
Keyword(s):  
Crude Oil ◽  
Water Chemistry ◽  
Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Interaction Mechanism ◽  
Field Trials ◽  
Wettability Alteration ◽  
Low Salinity ◽  
Injection Water

Summary Injection of water with a designed chemistry has been proposed as a novel enhanced-oil-recovery (EOR) method, commonly referred to as low-salinity (LS) or smart waterflooding, among other labels. The multiple names encompass a family of EOR methods that rely on modifying injection-water chemistry to increase oil recovery. Despite successful laboratory experiments and field trials, underlying EOR mechanisms remain controversial and poorly understood. At present, the vast majority of the proposed mechanisms rely on rock/fluid interactions. In this work, we propose an alternative fluid/fluid interaction mechanism (i.e., an increase in crude-oil/water interfacial viscoelasticity upon injection of designed brine as a suppressor of oil trapping by snap-off). A crude oil from Wyoming was selected for its known interfacial responsiveness to water chemistry. Brines were prepared with analytic-grade salts to test the effect of specific anions and cations. The brines’ ionic strengths were modified by dilution with deionized water to the desired salinity. A battery of experiments was performed to show a link between dynamic interfacial viscoelasticity and recovery. Experiments include double-wall ring interfacial rheometry, direct visualization on microfluidic devices, and coreflooding experiments in Berea sandstone cores. Interfacial rheological results show that interfacial viscoelasticity generally increases as brine salinity is decreased, regardless of which cations and anions are present in brine. However, the rate of elasticity buildup and the plateau value depend on specific ions available in solution. Snap-off analysis in a microfluidic device, consisting of a flow-focusing geometry, demonstrates that increased viscoelasticity suppresses interfacial pinch-off, and sustains a more continuous oil phase. This effect was examined in coreflooding experiments with sodium sulfate brines. Corefloods were designed to limit wettability alteration by maintaining a low temperature (25°C) and short aging times. Geochemical analysis provided information on in-situ water chemistry. Oil-recovery and pressure responses were shown to directly correlate with interfacial elasticity [i.e., recovery factor (RF) is consistently greater the larger the induced interfacial viscoelasticity for the system examined in this paper]. Our results demonstrate that a largely overlooked interfacial effect of engineered waterflooding can serve as an alternative and more complete explanation of LS or engineered waterflooding recovery. This new mechanism offers a direction to design water chemistry for optimized waterflooding recovery in engineered water-chemistry processes, and opens a new route to design EOR methods.

CT coreflood study of foam flow for enhanced oil recovery: The effect of oil type and saturation

Energy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 188 ◽  
pp. 116022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinyu Tang ◽  
Sebastien Vincent-Bonnieu ◽  
William R. Rossen
Keyword(s):  
Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Foam Flow ◽  
Oil Type
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