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Effects of Phase Change on Enhanced Oil Recovery During Injection of Steam Carrying Alumina Nanoparticles: Numerical Simulation

  • Research Article-Petroleum Engineering
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Abstract

Effects of phase change specially steam condensation in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes such as steam assisted gravity drainage are a key important factor. Due to the last developments in nanotechnology, it is of great interest to use nanoparticles along with hot fluids to increase EOR efficiency. In current research, effects of phase change (steam condensation) on oil recovery from a two-dimensional porous medium during the injection of steam carrying alumina nanoparticles were studied. Additionally, fluid–fluid interfacial morphology development at different injection fluid temperatures i.e., 100, 110, 150, and 200 °C was examined. The governing equations of multi-phase fluid flow along with phase change were solved using finite volume computational technique. Comparing the results of oil recovery factor between phase change and non-phase change cases at 110 °C showed that initially the oil recovery factor in the case of non-phase change increases sharply, but as time goes on, the efficiency of phase change case becomes greater than that of non-phase change case mainly due to the large variations in fluid properties. It was also predicted that in injection of fluid at different temperatures, initially the recovery of oil grows sharply for 200 °C, but the final results of injected fluid with 110 °C achieves the highest efficiency of 67.5%. The final oil recovery at 110 °C increased by 21.5% compared to 200 °C. Moreover, the results predicted that the trend of oil recovery at different injection temperatures had a non-monotonic behavior over the time. Besides, the results showed that the amount of liquid water accumulation in the porous medium was reduced by increasing the injection temperature due to the low resident time and high energy content of the injected fluid at higher temperatures. Overall, the resident time of the injected fluid, its initial energy content (injection temperature), and phase change are the most vital factors in oil recovery factor enhancement.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

    Majid Ahmadlouydarab & Karim Ghaffari

  2. Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

    Arezou Jafari

Authors
  1. Majid Ahmadlouydarab
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  2. Karim Ghaffari
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  3. Arezou Jafari
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Correspondence to Majid Ahmadlouydarab.

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Ahmadlouydarab, M., Ghaffari, K. & Jafari, A. Effects of Phase Change on Enhanced Oil Recovery During Injection of Steam Carrying Alumina Nanoparticles: Numerical Simulation. Arab J Sci Eng 47, 11135–11144 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-021-05738-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-021-05738-w

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