Chemical EOR
1. High capillary forces being the primary reason behind oil trapping, to what extent, reduction of these capillary forces by EOR techniques would remain to be fruitful using Darcian approach (whose original version does not accommodate capillary-forces)?
2. If capillary pressure gets not only influenced by oil-water IFT, but also, by reservoir wettability, then, to what extent, will we be able to characterize - the squeezing of an oil droplet @ pore-throat-scale - using macroscopic Darcian approach?
At Darcy-scale, where is the scope - for characterizing “adsorption bringing down the total energy of the system”?
Can the associated variations in rheological properties would remain to be meaningful in a given REV?
Also, how do we accommodate - the adhesion of nanoparticles @ reservoir rock surfaces – that remain suitable for wettability alteration (from oil-wet to water-wet) – using Darcian approach?
3. How about the accompanying instability of surfactants – resulting from enhanced specific surface area - between ‘laboratory-scale observation’ and ‘field-scale implementation’?
To what extent, it would mitigate the wettability alteration @ field-scale?
Whether the injection of surfactant solution into a reservoir – leading to unendurable loss – has made surfactant-flooding an unfavorable candidate for chemical-EOR?
4. How do we have a control over various sizes of ‘differing’ nanoparticles (with differing surface-activity and adsorption-energy) @ field-scale?
If so, how about quantifying the fraction of “wettability-alteration” (reduction in contact angle) and “reduction in IFT” – for a given type of nanoparticle – with a given size?
Whether the conceptualization of interaction (a) between nanoparticles; (a) between nanoparticles and brine; and (c) between nanoparticle and reservoir rock surface – would remain to be fundamentally different (with reference to the properties that include high chemical stability, strong adsorption ability, high catalytic efficiency and low growth temperature) - @ laboratory-scale and @ field-scale?
Feasible to visualize, the way, the nanoparticles facilitate the mobility of oil to contact surfaces - in the reservoir region?
Whether, the way, the nanoparticles, give rise to structural disjoining pressure (a force perpendicular to the interface) in the wedge film – would remain to be the same, both @ laboratory-scale and @ field-scale?
If so, can we expect “the same” effective nanoparticle volume fraction, particle-size, polydispersity and particle-charge, both @ laboratory-scale and @ field-scale?
Albeit, the physical properties of nanoparticles and their catalytic capacity remain unchanged, won’t the effect of a particular synthesis method - used @ laboratory-scale (with its respective spherical morphology) – have an impact @ field-scale?
Whether the critical concentration of nanoparticles - for IFT reduction – would remain to be the same, both @ laboratory-scale and @ field-scale?
5. Towards characterizing the stability constraints of nanoparticles, whether the same factors (concentration, salinity, irreversible adsorption to the reservoir rock surfaces) with the same fraction – would dictate the resulting stability?
Suresh Kumar Govindarajan
When you think about an oil reservoir, you talk about some kind of nanoparticles. The structure of an oil reservoir is a xerogel filled with oil. Before this, you yourself prepared the airgel from nanotubes. Please note that the capillaries of the oil reservoir are nanosized, not nanoparticles. It is possible to transfer a model experiment in a laboratory to a natural reservoir, but with caution. I propose a section of our book on this issue.
Book Aqueous Hydrocarbon Systems in Science and Engineering
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