Effects of different gases on the performance of foams stabilized by Cocamidopropyl betaine surfactant and silica nanoparticles: A comparative experimental study

Abstract

Application of CO₂ gas in foam enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes has emerged as a win-win strategy for achieving higher oil recovery factor and reducing greenhouse gas emission, which can significantly help the protection of the ozone layer from depletion. However, lower stability of CO₂-foam, as compared to the N₂-and CH₄-foams, has tempted us to examine combinations of CO₂ with these gases to not only improve the stability of the produced foam but also have CO₂ as the gaseous phase of the foam. In this study, we investigated the effect of different gases and the mixture thereof on the performance of foams in EOR while the aqueous phase of foams is a constant mixture of Cocamidopropyl betaine surfactant (0.03 wt%) and silica nanoparticle (0.1 wt%). To this end, seven different gases, including N₂, CO₂, CH₄, 80% N₂ + 20% CO₂, 80% CH₄ + 20% CO₂, 50% CH₄ + 50% CO₂, 50% N₂ + 50% CO₂ were used as the gases phase for foam generation and the performance of the produced foams were examined through the following experiments: bulk foam stability tests, apparent foam viscosity measurements and core flooding tests. The results of foam stability tests showed that half-life time for the CO₂-, CH₄-and N₂-foams are 13.5, 17.0 and 44.0 min, respectively. Also, as revealed from apparent viscosity measurements, the N₂-and 80% N₂+20% CO₂ foams have higher apparent foam viscosity values followed by 50% N₂+50% CO₂ foam. Furthermore, we showed that a combination of 80% N₂ + 20% CO₂ as the gaseous phase for foam generation could not only improve CO₂-foam stability, as compared to other foams, but also can substantially increase ultimate oil recovery (56.6 %OOIP), even more than that for N₂ foam (48.6 %OOIP), obtained from core flooding experiments.

Keywords

Foam / Carbon dioxide / Nitrogen / Methane / Silica nanoparticles / Surfactant / Mobility ratio

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