Nanoparticle-stabilized CO₂ foam flooding for enhanced heavy oil recovery: A micro-optical analysis

Abstract

Surfactant flooding is a well-known chemical approach for enhancing oil recovery. Surfactant flooding has the disadvantage that it cannot withstand the harsh reservoir conditions. Improvements in oil recovery and release are made possible by the use of nanoparticles and surfactants and CO₂ co-injection because they generate stable foam, reduce the interfacial tension (IFT) between water and oil, cause emulsions to spontaneously form, change the wettability of porous media, and change the characteristics of flow. In the current work, the simultaneous injection of SiO₂, Al₂O₃ nanoparticles, anionic surfactant SDS, and CO₂ in various scenarios were evaluated to determine the microscopic and macroscopic efficacy of heavy oil recovery. IFT (interfacial tension) was reduced by 44% when the nanoparticles and SDS (2000 ppm) were added, compared to a reduction of roughly 57% with SDS only. SDS-stabilized CO₂ foam flooding, however, is unstable due to the adsorption of SDS in the rock surfaces as well as in heavy oil. To assess foam's potential to shift CO₂ from the high permeability zone (the thief zone) into the low permeability zone, directly visualizing micromodel flooding was successfully executed (upswept oil-rich zone). Based on typical reservoir permeability fluctuations, the permeability contrast (defined as the ratio of high permeability to low permeability) for the micromodel flooding was selected. However, the results of the experiment demonstrated that by utilizing SDS and nanoparticles, minimal IFT was reached. The addition of nanoparticles to surfactant solutions, however, greatly boosted oil recovery, according to the findings of flooding studies. The ultimate oil recovery was generally improved more by the anionic surfactant (SDS) solution including nanoparticles than by the anionic surfactant (SDS) alone.

Keywords

Micromodel / CO₂ foam / Surfactant / Nanoparticles / Interfacial tension / Heavy oil

Funding

The Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC), MITACS, and graduate studies at the University of Regina all provided funding for this study.

Author contributions

Conceptualization, A.R., E.S., and F.T.; methodology, A. R.; validation, A.R., E.S. and F.T.; formal analysis, A.R.; investigation, A.R.; resources, A.R., E.S. and F.T..; writing—original draft preparation, A.R.; writing—review and editing, A.R. and F.T.; supervision, E.S., and F.T.; project administration, E.S. and F.T.; funding acquisition, E.S. and F.T. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Declaration of competing interest

All authors have approved the manuscript's publication, and it was submitted without any conflicts of interest. I would want to attest on behalf of my co-authors that the work mentioned was original research that was neither under consideration for publication elsewhere, in whole or in part, nor had it been previously published. All writers listed have given their consent to the included manuscript.

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