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Experimental Investigation and Theoretical Modelling of Swelling and Solution of Coated Polyacrylamide Particle in Porous Media

Ashrafizadeh, Marjan | 2011

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 42524 (06)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Ramazani Saadatabadi, Ahmad
  7. Abstract:
  8. The main purpose of this study is simulation of in-situ release of nano-size coated polymer particles at the water-oil interface during the polymer flooding. Reaching at the flooding interface, the hydrophobic coating starts dissolving into the oil phase. Subsequently, the hydrophilic core polymer starts diffusing back and simultaneously solves into the water phase and increase the in-situ viscosity of the flooding interface. Because of the in-situ release of the polymer and consequently the viscosity reduction of the injected fluid, the driving force for injection of the polymer as well as the amount of polymer used in flooding will reduce. In addition, smart coating can decrease the polymer degradation caused by salinity, pH, and high temperature of reservoir. All of these effects together increase the polymer flooding efficiency and reduce the cost of EOR projects. On top of solving of the transport equations for the continuous phase (i.e. Navier-Stocks equation solved by SIMPLE Algorithm), the developed code allows simulating a discrete second phase (i.e. polymer particle) in a Lagrangian frame of reference. The trajectory of the polymer particle as well as their dissolution process can be modelled via the developed C# code. The polymer coating dissolution process is considered as spherical diffusion followed by polymer chain disentanglement through a diffusion boundary layer. Moreover, a swellable-chain disentanglement model is considered for the core polymer dissolution into the aqueous phase. Investigating the real system behaviour, different experimental tests are done including viscosity determination using Ostwald viscometer, determination of polymer molecular weight using dilute solutions viscosity method, and measuring the releasing time with a state of the art setup. In addition, the recovery of the method is measured by applying the process into the visual micro model systems. The measured recovery at reservoir temperature shows higher recovery with respect to the conventional polymer flooding
  9. Keywords:
  10. Enhanced Oil Recovery ; CONTROLLED RELEASE ; Nano-Size Polymer ; Smart Coating ; Modeling ; Simulation ; Experimental Investigation

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