• Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • Research
    • Articles
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • Research
    • Articles
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of KAUSTCommunitiesIssue DateSubmit DateThis CollectionIssue DateSubmit Date

    My Account

    Login

    Quick Links

    Open Access PolicyORCID LibguideTheses and Dissertations LibguideSubmit an Item

    Statistics

    Display statistics

    Assessment of Polymer-Induced Clogging Using Microfluidics

    • CSV
    • RefMan
    • EndNote
    • BibTex
    • RefWorks
    Type
    Article
    Authors
    Sugar, Antonia cc
    Torrealba, Victor
    Buttner, Ulrich
    Hoteit, Hussein cc
    KAUST Department
    Energy Resources & Petroleum Engineering
    Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division
    Ali I. Al-Naimi Petroleum Engineering Research Center (ANPERC)
    Microfluidics
    Energy Resources and Petroleum Engineering Program
    Date
    2020-12-22
    Online Publication Date
    2020-12-22
    Print Publication Date
    2021-12-15
    Submitted Date
    2020-07-28
    Permanent link to this record
    http://hdl.handle.net/10754/675067
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    Polymers have been successfully deployed in the oil and gas industry in various field implementations, including mobility control in waterflood, flow divergence, and well conformance control. However, lab and field applications of polymer injections often encounter polymer-induced formation damage related to pore-throat clogging from polymer entrapments, leading to permeability reduction. This phenomenon manifests as a loss of injectivity, which can diminish the recovery performance. The polymer interaction mechanisms with porous rocks are not fully understood. In this work, we use microfluidics to assess formation clogging induced by polymer flood. Microfluidic techniques offer convenient tools to observe polymer flow behavior and transport mechanisms through porous media. The microfluidic chips were designed to mimic the pore-size distribution of oil-bearing conventional reservoir rocks, with pore throats ranging from 1 to 10 µm. The proposed fabrication techniques enabled us to transfer the design onto a silicon wafer substrate through photolithography. The constructed microfluidic chip, conceptually known as “reservoir-on-a-chip,” served as a 2D flow proxy. With this technique, we overcome the inherent complexity of the 3D aspects of porous rocks to study the transport mechanisms occurring at the pore scale. We performed various experiments to assess some mechanisms of polymer-rock interaction related to the sizes of the polymer molecules and pore throats. The polymer flow behavior was compared to that of the waterflood baseline. Our observations showed that prolonged injection of polymer solutions could clog pore throats of sizes larger than the measured mean polymer-coil size, which is consistent with lab and field observations. This finding highlights a limitation in some polymer screening workflows in the industry that suggest selecting the candidate polymers based solely on their molecular size and the size distribution of the rock pore throats. This work emphasizes the need for careful core-flood experiments to assess polymer entrapment mechanisms and their implication on short- and long-term injectivity.
    Citation
    Sugar, A., Torrealba, V., Buttner, U., & Hoteit, H. (2020). Assessment of Polymer-Induced Clogging Using Microfluidics. SPE Journal, 26(06), 3793–3804. doi:10.2118/201626-pa
    Sponsors
    The authors would like to express gratitude to King Abdullah University of Science & Technology for funding and supporting this work.
    Publisher
    Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE)
    Journal
    SPE JOURNAL
    DOI
    10.2118/201626-PA
    Additional Links
    https://onepetro.org/SJ/article/26/06/3793/454717/Assessment-of-Polymer-Induced-Clogging-Using
    ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
    10.2118/201626-PA
    Scopus Count
    Collections
    Articles; Energy Resources and Petroleum Engineering Program; Ali I. Al-Naimi Petroleum Engineering Research Center (ANPERC); Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division

    entitlement

     
    DSpace software copyright © 2002-2022  DuraSpace
    Quick Guide | Contact Us | KAUST University Library
    Open Repository is a service hosted by 
    Atmire NV
     

    Export search results

    The export option will allow you to export the current search results of the entered query to a file. Different formats are available for download. To export the items, click on the button corresponding with the preferred download format.

    By default, clicking on the export buttons will result in a download of the allowed maximum amount of items. For anonymous users the allowed maximum amount is 50 search results.

    To select a subset of the search results, click "Selective Export" button and make a selection of the items you want to export. The amount of items that can be exported at once is similarly restricted as the full export.

    After making a selection, click one of the export format buttons. The amount of items that will be exported is indicated in the bubble next to export format.