Regular Article
Low-cost PMMA-based microfluidics for the visualization of enhanced oil recovery
1
School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing
100029, China
2
BGP Geological Research Center, BGP CNPC, Zhuozhou
072750, China
3
EXPEC Advanced Research Center, Saudi Aramco, Dhahran
31311, Saudi Arabia
* Corresponding author: fanyq@mail.buct.edu.cn
Received:
16
January
2018
Accepted:
18
June
2018
About one-third of the crude oil is trapped inside the pores of the carbonate and sandstone after the primary and secondary oil recovery, various methods have been used for the flooding of the trapped crude oil. Due to the opaque nature of the sandstone and shale, the visualization of the fluid flow inside the porous structure conventionally involved the use of very sophisticated equipment like X-ray computed microtomography. In this approach, a low-cost method for the mimic of porous structure for the enhanced oil recovery is proposed using the polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA)-based microfluidic devices with the laser ablated microstructures, where the microstructure is the replica of a real rock fracture. Since the PMMA is optically clear in the visible range, the detailed fluid flow inside the porous structure could be obtained for a better understanding of the liquid front propagation and rheology in the pore-scale. The effect of water flooding is also tested with the proposed microfluidic devices under various flooding rates for the demonstration of oil recovery enhancement with the proposed technology.
© Y. Fan et al., published by IFP Energies nouvelles, 2018
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
