Insights into the application of microfluidic platforms in enhanced oil recovery

Abstract

Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technologies are used to recover most of the trapped crude oil from our limited reserves. With the escalating energy demand, EOR will achieve substantial economic benefits and greatly help in the exploitation of natural oil reserves. Recent research focused on microfluidic platforms for studying flow behavior during EOR flooding. These platforms are micro-sized, and allow processing and visualization of a minimal amount of fluid, making them an intriguing tool for studying the microscale phenomena in EOR processes. This review presents a comprehensive and concise literature on microfluidic trends and developments in EOR. A particular focus is on the use of these platforms to assess oil recovery via chemical-based flooding methods, to understand the associated emulsification mechanisms, and to mimic subsurface morphology and mineralogy of reservoirs. Furthermore, an outlook on the advancement of microfluidics utilization in EOR applications is discussed, covering development efficient micro-scale separators, 3D printing, and Artificial Intelligence applications. Microfluidic platforms provide valuable insights into EOR processes, and ongoing advancements in microfluidics hold the potential to enhance oil recovery efficiency and optimize EOR techniques.

Keywords

Chemical flooding / Emulsions / Enhanced oil recovery / Microfluidics / Surface modification

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Fadi Dawaymeh: Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing-original draft, Writing-review & editing. Elie Ayoub: Formal analysis, Writing-review & editing. Maryam Khaleel: Supervision, Writing-review & editing. Nahla Alamoodi: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Writing-review & editing.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by Khalifa University of Science and Technology under Awards No. [CIRA-2020-34] and Center of Catalysis and Separation (CeCaS) Theme II- under Awards No. [RC2-2018-024].

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