1887
  1. Home
  2. Conferences
  3. Conference Proceedings
  4. IOR 2019 – 20th European Symposium on Improved Oil Recovery
  5. Conference paper

Abstract

Summary

A potential solution to mitigate the adverse effects of viscous fingering, gravity override, and reservoir heterogeneity on the efficiency of gas injection in porous media is to inject the gas with a solution containing surface-active agents such as surfactants or nanoparticles. The efficiency of these processes largely depends on the generation and stability of the lamellae residing in the pores, both of which are influenced by the physicochemical properties of the rock and surfactant solution. In this study, the effect of surfactant concentration on the transient and steady-state foam behavior in porous media was investigated. Several core flood experiments were conducted, in which the nitrogen gas and surfactant solutions with different concentrations were simultaneously injected into a Bentheimer sandstone core. Moreover, the ability of the current foam models in simulating the effect of surfactant concentration was examined and modifications were suggested accordingly. For the cases investigated and under our experimental conditions, the following conclusions are made:

  • Strong foams can be generated with a very low surfactant concentration in the low-quality regime, albeit with a very slow generation rate.
  • Surfactant concentration has a significant influence on the transient foam behavior or foam generation. The rate of foam generation increases with the increase of the surfactant concentration.
  • The transition from coarse to strong foam occurs earlier as the surfactant concentration increases.
  • Surfactant concentration does not impact the steady-state behavior of foam in the low-quality regime.
  • In the high-quality regime, the foam strength increases with increasing surfactant concentration. This is attributed to the influence of the limiting capillary on foam stability in this regime, whose value increases with the increase in surfactant concentration.
  • The current formulation of the steady-state implicit-textured foam models is unable to model the effect of the surfactant concentration, because the current model scales both high- and low-quality regimes with the surfactant concentration.

The only surfactant dependent parameter in IT foam models is the limiting water saturation or the fmdry parameter. Therefore, the effect of the surfactant concentration can be reflected solely by the fmdry parameter and there is no need for a separate surfactant-concentration function

© EAGE Publications BV
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.201900252
2019-04-08
2024-04-25

  • From This Site

    /content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.201900252
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Fried, A. N.
    Foam-Drive Process for Increasing the Recovery of Oil; San Francisco Petroleum Research Lab, Bureau of Mines: San Francisco, CA, 1960.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Hirasaki, G.; Lawson,J.
    Mechanisms of foam flow in porous media: apparent viscosity in smooth capillaries. Soc. Pet. Eng. J. 1985, 25, 176–190.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Kovscek, A.; Radke, C.
    Fundamentals of Foam Transport in Porous Media. In Foams: Fundamentals and Applications in the Petroleum Industry; Lawrence Berkeley Lab.: Berkeley, CA, 1994; pp 115–163.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Rossen, W. R.
    Foams in Enhanced Oil Recovery. Foams: Theory, 438 Measurement, and Applications; Prud’ Homme, R. K., Khan, S., Eds.; Marcel Dekker: New York, 1996.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Turta, A. T.; Singhal, A. K.
    Field Foam Applications in Enhanced Oil Recovery Projects: Screening and Design Aspects, Paper presented at the SPE International Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition in China, 1998.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Eftekhari, A. A.; Krastev, R.; Farajzadeh, R.
    Foam stabilized by fly ash nanoparticles for enhancing oil recovery. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2015, 54, 12482–12491.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Worthen, A. J.; Bagaria, H. G.; Chen, Y.; Bryant, S. L.; Huh, C.; Johnston, K. P.
    Nanoparticle-stabilized carbon dioxide-in-water foams with fine texture. J. Colloid Interface Sci. 2013, 391, 142–151.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Khatib, Z. I.; Hirasaki, G. J.; Falls, A. H.
    Effects of Capillary Pressure on Coalescence and Phase Mobilities in Foams Flowing Through Porous Media. SPE Reservoir Eng. 1988, 3, 919–926.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Farajzadeh, R.; Lotfollahi, M.; Eftekhari, A.; Rossen, W.; Hirasaki, G.
    Effect of permeability on implicit-texture foam model parameters and the limiting capillary pressure. Energy Fuels2015, 29, 3011–3018.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Apaydin, O. G.; Kovscek, A. R.
    Surfactant concentration and end effects on foam flow in porous media. Transp. Porous Media2001, 43, 511–536.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Aronson, A.; Bergeron, V.; Fagan, M. E.; Radke, C.
    The influence of disjoining pressure on foam stability and flow in porous media. Colloids Surf., A 1994, 83, 109–120.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Marsden, S.; Khan, S. A.
    The flow of foam through short porous media and apparent viscosity measurements. Soc. Pet. Eng. J. 1966, 6, 17–25.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Jones, S. A.; van der Bent, V.; Farajzadeh, R.; Rossen, W. R.; Vincent-Bonnieu, S.
    Surfactant screening for foam EOR: Correlation between bulk and core-flood experiments. Colloids Surf., A2016, 166–176.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Farajzadeh, R.; Krastev, R.; Zitha, P.
    Foam films stabilized with alpha olefin sulfonate (AOS). Colloids Surf., A2008, 324, 35–40.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Ma, K.; Lopez-Salinas, J. L.; Puerto, M. C.; Miller, C. A.; Biswal, S. L.; Hirasaki, G. J.
    Estimation of Parameters for the Simulation of Foam Flow through Porous Media. Part 1: The Dry-Out Effect. Energy Fuels2013, 27, 2363–2375.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Ma, K.; Farajzadeh, R.; Lopez-Salinas, J. L.; Miller, C. A.; Biswal, S. L.; Hirasaki, G. J.
    Non-uniqueness, Numerical Artifacts, and Parameter Sensitivity in Simulating Steady-State and Transient Foam Flow Through Porous Media. Transp. Porous Media2014, 102, 325–348.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Kahrobaei, S.; Vincent-Bonnieu, S.; Farajzadeh, R.
    Experimental Study of Hysteresis behavior of Foam Generation in Porous Media. Sci. Rep. 2017, 7, No. 8986.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Bernard, G. G.; Holm, L.
    Effect of foam on permeability of porous media to gas. Soc. Pet. Eng. J.1964, 4, 267–274.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Eftekhari, A. A.; Farajzadeh, R.
    Effect of Foam on Liquid Phase Mobility in Porous Media. Sci. Rep.2017, 7, No. 43870.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Computer Modelling Group
    STARS User's Guide; Computer Modelling Group Ltd: Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 2010.
  21. Boeije, C.; Rossen, W.
    Fitting Foam Simulation Model Parameters to Data, Paper presented at the IOR 2013-17th European Symposium on Improved Oil Recovery, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 16 April, 2013.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Corey, A. T.
    The interrelation between gas and oil relative permeabilities. Prod. Mon. 1954, 19, 38–41.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Peng, D.-Y.; Robinson, D. B.
    A new two-constant equation of state. Ind. Eng. Chem. Fundam.1976, 15, 59–64.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Lotfollahi, M.; Farajzadeh, R.; Delshad, M.; Varavei, A.; Rossen, W. R.
    Comparison of implicit-texture and population-balance foam models. J. Nat. Gas Sci. Eng.2016, 31, 184–197.
     [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.201900252
Loading
Insights into Effects of Surfactant Concentration on Foam Behavior in Porous Media
Conference Proceedings 2019, 1 (2019); https://doi.org/10.3997/2214-4609.201900252
/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.201900252
/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.201900252
Loading

Data & Media loading...

Most Cited This Month Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error