Emulsion Charakterization in Porous Media

Research output: ThesisMaster's Thesis

Abstract

The controlled formation of emulsions plays a significant part in numerous sectors, with one of them being the oil and gas industry. During the tertiary stage of oil production, also called enhanced oil recovery, gas injections, chemical- and thermal methods come into application and which can achieve an ultimate recovery of 30 to 60%. It targets the residual oil and therefore improves the microscopic sweep efficiency by mobility control, wettability alteration, viscosity and interfacial tension reduction. This thesis focuses on surfactant flooding, which falls under the chemical methods category and covers the investigation and characterization of emulsions by utilizing fluorescent imaging techniques. The surfactant used was the Ernodett J13131 and was mixed with a cosolvent, 2-butanol and distilled water. The salinity was varied by changing the amount of sodium chloride added. Three salinity concentrations were investigated: 1% (w/v), 2% (w/v), 4% (w/v). For the fluorescent imaging, fluorescein sodium salt was added and the oleic phase was resembled by decane. Phase behaviors were performed to state the influence of the fluorescein salt on the surfactant. Therefore, two test groups were established, which did not show any visual differences between them. To detect the ideal amount of fluorescein salt and to find a relationship between concentration and the mean grey value, a fluorescent intensity analysis was performed by injecting eight different solutions. With the base being distilled water and varying fluorescent dye concentration (2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 80, 100, 300 mg/l). 100 mg/l was chosen to be the best option for the displacement experiments. A linear relationship was found, where 100% results in a pure aqueous phase and 0% to a pure oleic phase. The displacement behaviors were performed in a fully decane saturated microfluidic chip, which was then displaced by a 1, 2 and 4% NaCl surfactant solution with 100 mg/l added fluorescein salt. It was observed that the optimum range must lay between 2 and 4% NaCl while the 2% solution performed the best out of all experiments. Additionally, interfacial tension measurements were performed by using the pendant drop method and spinning drop tensiometer. However, no precise results could be stated, which need further investigation.

Details

Translated title of the contributionEmulsion Charakterisierung in porösen Medien
Original languageEnglish
QualificationDipl.-Ing.
Awarding Institution
Supervisors/Advisors
Award date25 Jun 2021
Publication statusPublished - 2021