Ingeniería en Petróleo

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Evaluation of silicone fluids and resins as CO2 thickeners for enhanced oil recovery using a computational and experimental approach
(2021-09) Gallo Jiménez, Gonzalo Augusto; Erdmann, Eleonora; Cavasotto, Claudio N.
"CO2 thickeners have the potential to be a game changer for enhanced oil recovery, carbon capture utilization and storage, and hydraulic fracturing. Thickener design is challenging due to polymers’ low solubility in supercritical CO2(scCO2) and the difficulty of substantially increasing the viscosity of CO2. In this contribution, we present a framework to design CO2 soluble thickeners, combining calculations using a quantum mechanical solvation model with direct laboratory viscosity testing. The conductor-like polarizable continuum model for solvation free-energy calculations was used to determine functional silicone and silsesquioxane solubilities in scCO2. This method allowed for a fast and efficient identification of CO2-soluble compounds, revealing silsesquioxanes as more CO2-philic than linear polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), the most efficient non-fluorinated thickener know to date. The rolling ball apparatus was used to measure the viscosity of scCO2 with both PDMS and silicone resins with added silica nanoparticles. Methyl silicone resins were found to be stable and fast to disperse in scCO2 while having a significant thickening effect. They have a larger effect on the solution viscosity than higher-molecular-weight PDMS and are able to thicken CO2 even at high temperatures. Silicone resins are thus shown to be promising scCO2 thickeners, exhibiting enhanced solubility and good rheological properties, while also having a moderate cost and being easily commercially attainable."
Simulation of viscosity enhanced CO2 nanofluid alternating gas in light oil reservoirs
(2017-05) Gallo Jiménez, Gonzalo Augusto; Erdmann, Eleonora
"Thickened CO2 nanofluids are a mean to improve volumetric sweep efficiency and gas production in CO2 EOR projects in contrast CO2 flooding. Alternating injection of plain CO2 with thickened CO2 nanofluid is proposed as an economical alternative using the findings of CO2 viscosity enhancement through nanoparticles in current studies. This was achieved by using CMG GEM simulator and contrasting findings with other WAG and CO2 flooding simulations. The simulation was done on a light oil (40 °API) from a Neuquén Basin reservoir. A sensitivity analysis was done to contrast different type of injection schemes. As CO2 nanofluids can be tailor made in order to adjust their viscosity (and other properties like asphaltene deposition control) diverse results were observed. Nanofluids improve the volumetric sweet efficiency, and even low viscosity increment increase the overall gas utilization and conformance compared to CO2 flooding. Since there is no face change, the use of CO2 based nanofluids can be a mean to control CO2 EOR projects avoiding injectivity loss problems. It was observed that injection of mere nanofluid (without alternating CO2) is not technically nor economically convenient as it decreases production rates and has an overall lower economic performance than both WAG and CO2 flooding. Nevertheless, alternating nanofluid with plain CO2 enables higher sweep efficiency while lowering the operational costs due to lower volumes of nanofluid utilized. Adding nanofluid to a WAG scheme also shows improvements in EOR performance."

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