TY - JOUR
T1 - Nanostructured Particles for Controlled Polymer Release in Enhanced Oil Recovery
AU - Tamsilian, Yousef
AU - Ahmad Ramazani, S. A.
AU - Shaban, Masoom
AU - Ayatollahi, Shahab
AU - de la Cal, Jose C.
AU - Sheng, James J.
AU - Tomovska, Radmila
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
PY - 2016/9/1
Y1 - 2016/9/1
N2 - With the decline in oil discoveries over recent decades, it is believed that enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technologies will play a key role to meet energy demand in the coming years. Polymer flooding is used commonly worldwide as an EOR process. In this work, we propose the synthesis of protected polyacrylamide (PAM) nanoparticles (PPNs) with a hydrophobic polystyrene (PSt) shell by one-pot two-step inverse emulsion polymerization, in which the PSt shell was created by surface polymerization. The shell protects the active PAM chains from premature degradation caused by the harsh environment in the reservoirs, controls the release of the chains as rheological modifiers, and additionally, it provides the chains with prolonged stability. The time-dependent release of the PPNs promotes the effectiveness of the PPNs as viscosity modifiers, as the maximum viscosity enhancement is achieved at longer residence times in the reservoirs. This can be up to 30 days, and the released polymer maintained its activity. Under conditions of high salinity (total dissolved solids=178 082 mg L−1), temperatures up to 90 °C, and shear rates up to 1000 s−1, PPNs have shown superior properties, such as elastic modulus, shear rate behavior, viscosity loss, and sand adsorption over PAM, whereas the areal sweep efficiency of PPNs is similar to that of PAM and higher than that of conventional water flooding. All of this makes PPNs promising candidates for polymer-enhanced oil recovery.
AB - With the decline in oil discoveries over recent decades, it is believed that enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technologies will play a key role to meet energy demand in the coming years. Polymer flooding is used commonly worldwide as an EOR process. In this work, we propose the synthesis of protected polyacrylamide (PAM) nanoparticles (PPNs) with a hydrophobic polystyrene (PSt) shell by one-pot two-step inverse emulsion polymerization, in which the PSt shell was created by surface polymerization. The shell protects the active PAM chains from premature degradation caused by the harsh environment in the reservoirs, controls the release of the chains as rheological modifiers, and additionally, it provides the chains with prolonged stability. The time-dependent release of the PPNs promotes the effectiveness of the PPNs as viscosity modifiers, as the maximum viscosity enhancement is achieved at longer residence times in the reservoirs. This can be up to 30 days, and the released polymer maintained its activity. Under conditions of high salinity (total dissolved solids=178 082 mg L−1), temperatures up to 90 °C, and shear rates up to 1000 s−1, PPNs have shown superior properties, such as elastic modulus, shear rate behavior, viscosity loss, and sand adsorption over PAM, whereas the areal sweep efficiency of PPNs is similar to that of PAM and higher than that of conventional water flooding. All of this makes PPNs promising candidates for polymer-enhanced oil recovery.
KW - enhanced oil recovery
KW - nanoparticles
KW - oil–water interface
KW - polyacrylamide
KW - polymers
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85006226071&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/ente.201600036
DO - 10.1002/ente.201600036
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85006226071
SN - 2194-4288
VL - 4
SP - 1035
EP - 1046
JO - Energy Technology
JF - Energy Technology
IS - 9
ER -