Fast Screening of LSW Brines Using QCM-D and Crude Oil-Brine Interface Analogs
Type
Conference PaperAuthors
Yutkin, MaximKaprielova, K. M.
Kamireddy, Sirisha
Gmira, A.
Ayirala, S. C.
Radke, C. J.
Patzek, Tadeusz

KAUST Department
King Abdullah University of Science and TechnologyAli I. Al-Naimi Petroleum Engineering Research Center (ANPERC)
Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division
Energy Resources and Petroleum Engineering Program
KAUST Grant Number
BAS/1/1378-01-01Date
2022-04-18Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/676415
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
This work focuses on a potentially economic incremental oil-recovery process, where a brine amended with inexpensive salts (in contrast to expensive surfactants and other chemicals) is injected into a reservoir to increase oil production. Historically, this process received the name of low salinity waterflooding (LSW) although the salinity is not always low(er). Nevertheless, we keep using this terminology for historical reasons. The idea of LSW has been known for three decades, but to the best of our knowledge no specific brine recipes that guarantee success have been presented so far. The reasons hide in the problem's complexity, disagreements in the scientific community, and a race to publish rather than to understand the fundamental principles behind the process. In this paper, we present an experimental model system that captures many of the important fundamental features of the natural process of crude oil attachment to mineral surfaces, but at the same time decomposes this complex process into simpler parts that can be more precisely controlled and understood. We systematically investigate the first-order chemical interactions contributing to the well-known strong attachment of crude oil to minerals using SiO2 as a mineral for its surface chemistry simplicity. Our preliminary results suggest that magnesium and sulfate ions are potent in detaching amino/ammonium-based linkages of crude oil with a SiO2 surface. However, when used together in the form of MgSO4, they lose part of their activity to the formation of a MgSO4 ion pairs. We also find that sulfate-detachment propensity stems not from the interaction with prototype mineral surface, but rather from the interactions with the crude oil-brine interface analog. We continue the systematic study of the ion effects on crude oil detachment, with and more results following in the future.Citation
Yutkin, M. P., Kaprielova, K. M., Kamireddy, S., Gmira, A., Ayirala, S. C., Radke, C. J., & Patzek, T. W. (2022). Fast Screening of LSW Brines Using QCM-D and Crude Oil-Brine Interface Analogs. Day 1 Mon, April 25, 2022. https://doi.org/10.2118/209389-msSponsors
This research was supported by Saudi Aramco (grant No. RGC/3/3899-01-01) and through a baseline grant of prof. T. W. Patzek (grant No. BAS/1/1378-01-01).Publisher
SPEConference/Event name
SPE Improved Oil Recovery Conferenceae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.2118/209389-ms