Impact of solutal Marangoni convection on oil recovery during chemical flooding
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Impact of solutal Marangoni convection on oil recovery during chemical flooding Sepideh Palizdan1 · Jassem Abbasi1 · Masoud Riazi1 · Mohammad Reza Malayeri1 Received: 1 November 2019 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract In this study, the impacts of solutal Marangoni phenomenon on multiphase flow in static and micromodel geometries have experimentally been studied and the interactions between oil droplet and two different alkaline solutions (i.e. M gSO4 and Na2CO3) were investigated. The static tests revealed that the Marangoni convection exists in the presence of the alkaline and oil which should carefully be considered in porous media. In the micromodel experiments, observations showed that in the MgSO4 flooding, the fluids stayed almost stationary, while in the Na2CO3 flooding, a spontaneous movement was detected. The changes in the distribution of fluids showed that the circular movement of fluids due to the Marangoni effects can be effective in draining of the unswept regions. The dimensional analysis for possible mechanisms showed that the viscous, gravity and diffusion forces were negligible and the other mechanisms such as capillary and Marangoni effects should be considered in the investigated experiments. The value of the new defined Marangoni/capillary dimensionless number for the Na2CO3 solution was orders of magnitude larger than the MgSO4 flooding scenario which explains the differences between the two cases and also between different micromodel regions. In conclusion, the Marangoni convection is activated by creating an ultra-low IFT condition in multiphase flow problems that can be profoundly effective in increasing the phase mixing and microscopic efficiency. Keywords Marangoni effects · Chemical flooding · Surface tension · Alkaline
1 Introduction Chemical flooding for the purpose of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods is gaining increased attention in recent years. As a chemical EOR method, alkaline flooding where different chemical species such as sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) are dissolved in aqueous solution are known for their potential for improving oil recovery factor (Liu et al. 2008). In this method, the alkaline solution reacts with polar components of the oil Edited by Yan-Hua Sun Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12182-020-00451-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Masoud Riazi [email protected] 1
School of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Shiraz University, Molasadra Avenue, 71946‑84636 ShirazFars, Iran
(carboxylate branches and branches with oxygen and sulphur atoms) or polar sides of the rock leading to changes in the solid/fluid or fluid/fluid interfacial properties which, in turn, reduces the volume of trapped oil in the formation. Similar to the surfactant flooding method, the main mechanisms enrolling in alkaline flooding process are interfacial tension (IFT) reduction, wettability alteration, and emulsification (Sheng 2
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