Article
Chemistry, Physical
Rohit Kumar Saw, Anshuman Singh, Neetish Kumar Maurya, Ajay Mandal
Summary: Low salinity water flooding is cost-effective and environmentally friendly, and the addition of nanoparticles and polymers can significantly increase oil recovery. The viscosity of complex chemical slugs can be increased by adding nanoparticles to polymer solutions. Low salinity water requires a lower concentration of polymer to reach the target viscosity compared to high saline formation water. The addition of nanoparticles reduces interfacial tension and contact angle, leading to higher oil recovery in low salinity water. Injection of low salinity water-based complex fluid results in incremental recovery of OOIP compared to low salinity water and conventional formation water flooding.
COLLOIDS AND SURFACES A-PHYSICOCHEMICAL AND ENGINEERING ASPECTS
(2023)
Article
Energy & Fuels
Mohammad Fattahi Mehraban, Seyed Amir Farzaneh, Mehran Sohrabi
Summary: This study identified the functional compounds in crude oil that contribute to the low salinity water effect during water injection. Acidic compounds with aliphatic nature and asphaltene molecules were found to promote the formation of water-in-oil microdispersion at the interface, crucial for designing waterflood operations in oil reservoirs.
Article
Chemistry, Physical
M. B. Abdullahi, S. R. Jufar, S. Kumar, T. M. Al-shami, B. M. Negash
Summary: Low salinity water (LSW) flooding combined with the traditional polymer flooding process (called low salinity polymer, LSP flooding) could significantly improve oil recovery efficiency. This study investigated the effect of polymer concentration, salinity, and temperature on LSP flooding, as well as the interaction between clay minerals and LSP slug. The experiments showed that LSP flooding recovered more additional oil compared to high salinity polymer (HSP) flooding.
JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR LIQUIDS
(2022)
Article
Thermodynamics
Chaohui Lyu, Liguo Zhong, Qing Wang, Wei Zhang, Xiaodong Han, Mingqiang Chen, Yu Zhu, Jiawang Yang
Summary: In this study, static tests and core experiments were conducted to evaluate the production performance of heavy oil using low viscosity oil as injection. The results indicate that 30% is the optimal dilution ratio considering economy and efficiency. The study demonstrates the promising strategy of low viscosity oil injection on enhancing heavy oil recovery.
Article
Energy & Fuels
Xincheng Zhang, Changqing He, Jingjing Zhou, Ying Tian, Lin He, Hong Sui, Xingang Li
Summary: Two strategies, including interfacial reconstruction and bulk oil phase property regulation, were proposed to enhance the demulsification of water-in-heavy oil emulsions. A novel demulsifier, TJU-3, was designed to break the rigid interfacial film, showing faster dehydration rate and no tailing phenomenon. The combination of demulsifiers with diluents at slight heating conditions achieved complete dehydration of the emulsions.
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Mingkun Zhai, Kang Zhou, Zezheng Sun, Zanfu Xiong, Qingjun Du, Yang Zhang, Lina Shi, Jian Hou
Summary: The rheology of oil-in-water emulsion is crucial in heavy oil development, storage, transport, and processing. The effect of shear rate, dispersed-phase volume fraction, continuous-phase viscosity, and droplet size on the rheological properties of heavy oil-in-water emulsions was evaluated through experiments. The experimental results showed that the rheological characteristics of the emulsions varied with the volume fraction of the dispersed-phase and shear rate, and the droplet size played a significant role in shear viscosity.
JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR LIQUIDS
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Chemical
Ning Li, Hao Ma, Tongyu Wang, Caixia Sun, Shuqian Xia
Summary: In this study, a new salt-resistant water-soluble viscosity reducer was designed and synthesized, which showed excellent viscosity-reducing properties for heavy oil under highly mineralized formation water and high-temperature reservoir conditions. The thermal stability, hydrophobicity, surface activity, and salt resistance of the polymer improved with increasing molecular weight. The study also discussed the viscosity reduction mechanism of different molecular weight viscosity reducers.
JOURNAL OF THE TAIWAN INSTITUTE OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERS
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Environmental
Mifa Chen, Yefei Wang, Wuhua Chen, Mingchen Ding, Zhenyu Zhang, Chuhan Zhang, Shizhang Cui
Summary: Functional polymers play a significant role in oilfield development. In this study, a side-chain functionalized copolymer APVR was fabricated using a functional monomer BMP and DHM. The structure of APVR was characterized using various analyses and its viscosity reduction and heavy oil displacement performance were studied. The results showed that APVR exhibited higher viscosity reduction rate and ultimate recovery of heavy oil compared to other copolymers. The unique structure of BMP and DHM allowed them to interact with heavy oil, reducing intermolecular forces and promoting emulsification. APVR shows promising potential for reducing heavy oil viscosity and has broad application prospects in heavy oil exploitation.
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL
(2023)
Article
Energy & Fuels
Yiya Wang, Riyi Lin, Liqiang Zhang, Xinlu Han, Jinyu Li, Chenxing Huang, Qiwei Dong, Pengyu Chen, Huanan Li, Xinwei Wang
Summary: This study investigates the catalytic viscosity reduction of heavy oil at low temperatures using a series of ZrO2-MoO3-based catalysts loaded on raw or modified lotus stem biochar. The results show that catalyst IV, consisting of KH570-MLSB, ZrO2, and MoO3, exhibits the best catalytic effect at 200 degrees C.
Article
Energy & Fuels
Jeffrey Dankwa Ampah, Xin Liu, Xingyu Sun, Xiaoyan Pan, Linxun Xu, Chao Jin, Tianyun Sun, Zhenlong Geng, Sandylove Afrane, Haifeng Liu
Summary: The study aims to prepare a blend of HFO-methanol/ethanol that can be kinetically stable for at least 48 hours, and evaluate its viscosity, corrosivity, and sulfur content. Results showed that oxygenated fuels can significantly decrease kinematic viscosity, reduce preheating cost, while the ternary systems exhibited extremely low corrosivity and decreased sulfur content.
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Zhenyu Zhang, Yefei Wang, Mingchen Ding, Dihao Mao, Mifa Chen, Yugui Han, Yigang Liu, Xinfang Xue
Summary: The role and contribution of different mechanisms to heavy oil recovery through combination flooding, such as viscosification, ultralow interface tension (IFT) and emulsification, are still unclear. In this study, emulsified and ultra-low IFT mixtures were compared in terms of IFT, emulsion stability, and oil recovery performance. Results showed that while the ultra-low IFT mixture had a very low IFT, its emulsion stability was poor, whereas the emulsified mixtures were more effective in stabilizing heavy oil emulsion. The contribution of emulsification was found to be higher when the viscosity ratio was lower than 0.2, but decreased as the viscosity ratio increased.
JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR LIQUIDS
(2023)
Review
Energy & Fuels
Weidong Chen, Xiangfei Geng, Weidong Liu, Bin Ding, Chunming Xiong, Jianfeng Sun, Chen Wang, Ke Jiang
Summary: This paper provides a systematic review of the literature on surfactant-based chemical-enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods, focusing on performance evaluation and application potential. It is found that surfactant-based formulations can increase oil recovery by reducing interfacial tension, altering surface wettability, enhancing aqueous penetration, improving oil mobility, and promoting spontaneous imbibition. Laboratory experiments and field tests have confirmed the feasibility of chemical EOR and provided improvement schemes and future research directions.
Article
Engineering, Chemical
Rui Guo, Wei Fu, Le Qu, Yongfei Li, Weihua Yuan, Gang Chen
Summary: In this study, Fe(III) oleate was used as a catalyst and methanol was introduced as a hydrogen donor in aquathermolysis. The results showed that methanol can increase the viscosity reduction rate of aquathermolysis. The addition of methanol promoted the breakage of long-chain alkanes in heavy oil, decreased the content of asphaltene and resin, and improved the fluidity of oil samples.
Article
Energy & Fuels
Xiaodong Gao, Pingchuan Dong, Jiawei Cui, Qichao Gao
Summary: This study aims to develop a more accurate viscosity model of diluted heavy crude based on machine learning techniques. By using a multilayer neural network to predict the viscosity of heavy oil diluted with lighter oil, it was found that the new model can predict the viscosity of diluted heavy oil with higher accuracy and outperforms other models.
Article
Energy & Fuels
Mohammad Hasan Badizad, Mohammad Mehdi Koleini, Hugh Christopher Greenwell, Shahab Ayatollahi, Mohammad Hossein Ghazanfari
Summary: This research provides an atomistic perspective on how ions impact the microstructural features of an oil-contaminated calcite surface. It shows that divalent cations, especially calcium ions, play a crucial role in promoting the desorption of oil molecules, while sulfate ions assist in preventing the reabsorption of carboxylate compounds.
Article
Energy & Fuels
A. Mehdizadi, P. Pourafshary, B. Sedaee
Summary: Clay minerals are important constituents of oil and gas reservoirs and can cause formation damage through swelling and migration. This study investigates the swelling and migration of clays at the pore scale using clay coated micromodels. The effect of the composition and salinity of injected brines on sodium bentonite swelling and migration is visualized and analyzed using an image processing technique. The experiments show that using brines with KCl salt is vital for controlling formation damage, and the combination of KCl and CaCl2 salt shows the best performance in reducing porosity and controlling clay migration.
JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
(2022)
Article
Energy & Fuels
Leila Karabayanova, Aizada Ganiyeva, Peyman Pourafshary, Muhammad Rehan Hashmet
Summary: The high efficiency of Low Salinity Water (LSW) injection in carbonates, leading to better oil displacement, has been confirmed by various studies. The combination of LSW injection with other Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques, such as Low Salinity Hot Water (LSHW) injection, shows promising results for heavy oil carbonate formations. This study experimentally evaluated the performance of LSW and hybrid LSHW injection for heavy oil carbonate cores. The results showed that hybrid LSHW flooding significantly increased oil recovery compared to standalone LSW and EW flooding, due to the active mechanisms of wettability alteration and viscosity reduction.
JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
(2022)
Article
Energy & Fuels
Adilet Aliyev, Davood Zivar, Peyman Pourafshary
Summary: This study compares the interwell connectivity values estimated by tracer tests and the capacitance-resistance model (CRM) for synthetic and real fields, demonstrating that CRM can simulate waterflooding processes and accurately estimate production. CRM is recommended as a low-cost and quick tool for approximate estimation of interwell connectivity.
Review
Energy & Fuels
Marzhan Karimova, Razieh Kashiri, Peyman Pourafshary, Randy Hazlett
Summary: Fluid flow in naturally fractured reservoirs is complex and heterogeneous, and understanding fracture-matrix interactions is crucial. Fluid movement between fractures and matrix occurs through spontaneous imbibition, which can be affected by wettability. Low-salinity water injection is considered as an effective enhanced oil recovery approach for fractured and non-water-wet carbonate rocks. This review summarizes experimental and numerical studies on the imbibition process and highlights the need for further research on wettability alteration and simulation models for co/countercurrent flows in naturally fractured reservoirs.
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Rizwan Muneer, Peyman Pourafshary, Muhammad Rehan Hashmet
Summary: This study presents a new integrated model that incorporates electrostatic, gravitational, and hydrodynamic forces to accurately predict fines migration. Experimental validation demonstrated the accuracy of the model.
JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR LIQUIDS
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Rizwan Muneer, Muhammad Rehan Hashmet, Peyman Pourafshary, Mariam Shakeel
Summary: Nanoparticles have significant importance in modern science due to their unique characteristics and diverse applications. A research proposes the use of machine learning techniques to simulate the zeta potential of silica nanofluids and colloidal systems. The developed artificial neural network (ANN) model achieved an accuracy of over 97% in zeta potential predictions and proved to be more accurate and faster than conventional methods. This research provides a highly accurate and rapid prediction method with broad applications across different fields.
Article
Engineering, Multidisciplinary
Ali Lesan, Reza Shams, Peyman Pourafshary, Abbas Bahrodi, Hosna Rastkerdar
Summary: A pressure maintenance strategy is crucial for reservoir management, especially in single-phase oil reservoirs. Water injection is a common method to prevent pressure decline, and analytical and semi-analytical methods are used to analyze reservoir response and pressure alteration. The Static Capacitance-Resistance Model (SCRM) has been applied to estimate water injection in reservoirs with charging aquifers and to investigate water injection performance in the aquifer zone.
RESULTS IN ENGINEERING
(2023)
Article
Energy & Fuels
Laila Maratbekkyzy, Mariam Shakeel, Peyman Pourafshary, Darya Musharova
Summary: Polymer flooding is an effective method for improving oil recovery from reservoirs, especially those with heterogeneous formations and viscous crude oils. This study focuses on controlling polymer adsorption using silica nanoparticles and alkali, and it demonstrates that both silica nanoparticles and alkali can effectively reduce polymer adsorption. The results show that polymer-nanoparticle flooding can achieve a higher recovery factor compared to standalone polymer flooding, with 5% incremental recovery of the remaining oil.
Article
Energy & Fuels
Razieh Kashiri, Arman Garapov, Peyman Pourafshary
Summary: This study investigated the influence of pH on wettability alteration and oil recovery in carbonate-fractured porous media through imbibition at high temperatures. The test results demonstrated that the ultimate recovery factor remained consistent regardless of the pH levels, but the oil recovery rate varied significantly. The analysis indicated that calcite dissolution and the alkali effect were the primary mechanisms at different pH values.
Article
Energy & Fuels
Sabber Khandoozi, Peyman Pourafshary, Saule Aidarova, Altynay Sharipova
Summary: Foam flooding is a popular method for improving oil recovery in reservoirs with varying heterogeneity levels. Surfactant-assisted foam flooding (SF) is commonly used but has limitations in high-pressure, high-temperature, and high-salinity reservoirs. Researchers have proposed nanoparticles-assisted foam flooding (NAF) as a new approach to overcome these limitations. This study investigated the performance of SF and NAF in controlling gas mobility in reservoirs with different levels of heterogeneity. The results showed that both SF and NAF improved recovery factors, with NAF showing greater potential due to decreased gas mobility and saturation in the top layers.
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Nurzhan Askar, Rizwan Muneer, Peyman Pourafshary
Summary: This study investigates the influence of phase distribution and rock wettability on the critical salt concentration (CSC) for fines migration in sandstone oil reservoirs. The results show that a weak water-wet system results in a higher CSC value compared to a strong water-wet system due to fine particles being contained within a thin water film. These findings provide valuable insights for the design of production and enhanced oil recovery strategies in sandstone reservoirs.
JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR LIQUIDS
(2023)
Article
Energy & Fuels
Yaser Ahmadi, Mohsen Mansouri, Peyman Pourafshary
Summary: Developing new ZnO-TiO2/ZSM-5 nanocomposites (ZTZ) and comparing them to standalone ZSM-5 zeolite, this study investigates the improvements in fluid/rock interactions. Various methods including XRD, SEM, EDX, and BET were used to analyze the morphology of the nanocomposites. Results showed that ZTZ exhibited better stability conditions and altered capillary forces more effectively compared to standalone nanoparticles. Oil displacement tests revealed that ZTZ achieved accelerated production and 9% higher recovery compared to ZSM-5 flooding, making it a promising nanocomposite for EOR in sandstone formations.
PETROLEUM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Fariza Amankeldi, Miras Issakhov, Peyman Pourafshary, Zhanar Ospanova, Maratbek Gabdullin, Reinhard Miller
Summary: This paper explores the potential of aggregates of surfactant and SiO2 nanoparticles as foam stabilizers for practical applications. It examines the effects of different chain lengths and concentrations of the cationic surfactant C(n)TAB on the performance of C(n)TAB-SiO2 nanofluids to understand their ability to stabilize foam. The results demonstrate improved foam stability in the presence of SiO2 nanoparticles, offering insights into foam stabilization and its potential in various industrial applications such as enhanced oil recovery and foam-based separation processes.
COLLOIDS AND INTERFACES
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Petroleum
Rizwan Muneer, Muhammad R. Hashmet, Peyman Pourafshary
Summary: This study proposes a novel method to predict the critical salt concentration (CSC) pre- and post-nanofluid treatment using DLVO modeling. The effectiveness of silica nanoparticles (SNPs) in controlling fines migration and reducing CSC is also evaluated. Experimental results confirm the accuracy of the DLVO models, and a promising reduction in CSC and fines migration is observed after the application of SNPs.
