TY - JOUR
T1 - Governing factors of foam flow in porous media of Berea sandstone at 1–8% NaCl
AU - Rudyk, S.
AU - Al-Khamisi, S.
AU - Al-Wahaibi, Y.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors are grateful to Petroleum Development Oman for sponsoring this project CR/DVC/OGRC/17/01 and to Karl Heinz Wolf, Rouhi Farajzadeh, and Siavash Kahrobaei at Delft Technical University for their technical help and valuable discussions.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2020/11
Y1 - 2020/11
N2 - The effect of salinity on foam formation was studied using an internal olefin sulfonate surfactant through a core of Berea sandstone of 255 mD at 0.4 mL/min and pressures of 400 and 500 psi. The apparent viscosity of foam decreased with increasing salinity due to decrease of foamability in the range of 1–5% NaCl. Due to preheating of the surfactant solution in the oven, it was higher at 6% and 8% NaCl than at 5% NaCl. The phenomena observed are in stark contrast to what is reported in many publications, the apparent viscosity against foam quality demonstrated a Newtonian plateau in low-quality regime at 1, 4 and 6% NaCl. The apparent viscosity linearly decreased at 5% and 8% NaCl while foam was not produced at 9–11% NaCl. A significant decrease in differential pressure, which implied an increase in pressure, was measured near the end of the core sample, mainly at 400 psi. Accumulation of trapped gas that was unable to exit due to slower gas flow explains these findings. A novel technique of using the length of foam drops at the system outlet as an indicator of the foam viscosity has been applied to determine governing factors of the foam flow, such as the liquid flow rate in low quality regime and gas flow rate in high quality regime.
AB - The effect of salinity on foam formation was studied using an internal olefin sulfonate surfactant through a core of Berea sandstone of 255 mD at 0.4 mL/min and pressures of 400 and 500 psi. The apparent viscosity of foam decreased with increasing salinity due to decrease of foamability in the range of 1–5% NaCl. Due to preheating of the surfactant solution in the oven, it was higher at 6% and 8% NaCl than at 5% NaCl. The phenomena observed are in stark contrast to what is reported in many publications, the apparent viscosity against foam quality demonstrated a Newtonian plateau in low-quality regime at 1, 4 and 6% NaCl. The apparent viscosity linearly decreased at 5% and 8% NaCl while foam was not produced at 9–11% NaCl. A significant decrease in differential pressure, which implied an increase in pressure, was measured near the end of the core sample, mainly at 400 psi. Accumulation of trapped gas that was unable to exit due to slower gas flow explains these findings. A novel technique of using the length of foam drops at the system outlet as an indicator of the foam viscosity has been applied to determine governing factors of the foam flow, such as the liquid flow rate in low quality regime and gas flow rate in high quality regime.
KW - Apparent viscosity
KW - Drop length
KW - Foam
KW - Salinity
KW - Surfactant
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jngse.2020.103528
DO - 10.1016/j.jngse.2020.103528
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85089491317
SN - 1875-5100
VL - 83
JO - Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering
JF - Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering
M1 - 103528
ER -