Chemical EOR: Crude Oil Emulsions
Feasible to bridge the gap between real field scenario and experimental observations?
1. Whether the way, the internal-phase (or droplet-phase) gets dispersed as droplets into a continuous-phase (external-phase), while getting stabilized by an emulsifying agent in an (immiscible) oil-water petroleum reservoir system - would remain to be the same - both in the vicinity of production-well; as well as @ far away from production-well during a chemical EOR process?
Before an emulsifying agent reaches the location that are far away from production wells (during a chemical EOR), how would the emlusions made of individual pure components of only oil and water phases would remain to be stable?
With time, won’t it split back into their original phases of water and oil due to the enhanced IFT between oil & water?
If so, how slowly/quickly should the injected emulsifying agents (surfactants; surface active agents; or emulsifiers) reach the locations that are far away from production well?
When exactly a surface-active agent or an emulsifier is required to reach the far away locations in order to stabilize the interfacial films?
OR
Can we expect asphaltenes and resins (indigenous surfactants) itself - would be able to stabilize the crude oil emulsions due to its enhanced tendency of getting mobilized and to get sedimented @ the interface between water droplet and the oil-phase?
Whether the emulsions produced under experimental investigations using commercial surfactants @ laboratory-scale would be able to replicate the natural emulsions as found in a real field reservoir?
For example, in a real field petroleum reservoir, upon crude oil production, the co-existing water and oil in the reservoir would come in contact with each other and would tend to get mixed during its pumping out from the wellbore; and eventually, would try to form water-in-oil emulsions. And, the natural indigenous surfactants present in crude oil (such as asphaltenes and resins; heavy metals; fatty acids and clays) would tend to lower the IFT between oil and water significantly; and thereby, would lead to the formation of stable barriers between oil-water interface that would resist the coalescence of water droplets; and eventually, would produce stable water-in-oil emulsions.
Also, the way, the presence of nitrogen, oxygen & sulfur (and other trace amount of common metals such as iron, vanadium and nickel) facilitate the formation of hydrogen bonding and polar interactions among the asphaltene components; and eventually, the way, they provide the elastic behavior and strength of interfacial films in a real field scenario:
Given the fact that the dielectric properties of the commercial surfactants are by far different than that of the indigenous surfactants (Asphaltene and resins); would it remain feasible to replicate such a real field scenario using experimental conditions @ lab-scale?
If not, how exactly are we trying to bridge the gap between laboratory-scale observations with that of a real field scenario?
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