Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2021
26th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
Foam Generation During Gas Invasion of a Porous Medium Saturated with Surfactant Solution
Submission Author:
Nicolle Lima , RJ
Co-Authors:
Nicolle Lima, Sidnei Paciornik, Marcio CARVALHO
Presenter: Nicolle Lima
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2021.COB2021-0770
Abstract
Foam has great potential to be used in oil recovery operations to improve sweep efficiency, in gas storage and acidization operations, and to solve problems caused by either a thief zone or gravity override. It can also be used in the remediation of contaminated sites. Foam, when produced in situ, fills the high permeability areas and diverts the displacing fluid into the direction of trapped oil, reducing the relative permeability of gas and leading to a more stable displacement front. The efficiency of these processes largely depends on the generation and stability of the foam films (lamellae) residing in the pores. The mobility of the injected gas is reduced when it’s foamed; this reduction is attributed to the increase in the gas effective viscosity and the reduction in gas relative permeability. The liquid films formed create resistance against the gas flow, impeding its free motion inside the porous media. The lamellae population that composes the foam is directly related to surfactant concentration, and their flow and mobility are functions of the pore geometry and foam properties. However, the dynamics of foam formation in porous media and the relationship between the generation rate and pressure gradient as a function of surfactant concentration are not fully understood. The goal of this research is to understand the dynamic process of gas invading a two-dimensional porous media glass model occupied by a surfactant solution. A microfluidic setup composed of a glass micromodel that represents the porous medium, a syringe pump, a pressure transducer, and a microscope, was used to visualize the pore-scale displacement and correlate the evolution of lamellae formation during the injection process with pressure difference for different flow conditions through image processing. The dynamics of lamellae formation and speed are reported and related to macroscopic flow behavior.
Keywords
Porous media, Microfluidics, EOR, foam
