1887

Abstract

The development of water flooding chemicals for EOR, in particular for high temperature (>100 oC) and high salinity (>100,000 ppm TDS) reservoirs, poses many challenges for both the chemical and mechanical stability under reservoir conditions. It is important to screen the bulk properties of large numbers of candidates from elaborate synthesis programs before moving on to testing in porous media, i.e. core floods. It has been our experience that commercially available hardware solutions in the form of rheometers and apparatuses to measure relevant physico-chemical properties are not available with the right performance profile for typical water flooding systems, e.g. low viscosity and high cloud point (solubility). In particular, measuring the rheology of viscoelastic solutions without destroying the supramolecular network can only be done in oscillation and has been limited to under 90 oC. Wintershall-BASF has developed a hardware solution for accurately measuring the rheology and viscoelastic properties –dynamic moduli- of dilute solutions up to ca. 125 oC. This is in the form of a custom pressure cell for a commercially available dual head rheometer that avoids high friction packing glands or high inertia magnetic couplings. In addition, an automated device for determining the cloud point up to 150 oC was built to expand the screening space of potential chemicals in hard, highly saline brines. We will outline the device’s development, validation and show examples of the utility above 100 oC for developing the next generation of EOR chemicals.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.201412139
2015-04-14
2024-03-28
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.201412139
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error