Water slug injection containing n polymers in porous media

• Published in: AIChE journal Vol. 65; no. 11
• Main Authors: Paula, Anália S., Apolinário, Felipe, Pires, Adolfo P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken, USA John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.11.2019; American Institute of Chemical Engineers
• Subjects: Adsorption; chemical enhanced oil recovery; Conservation laws; Enhanced oil recovery; hyperbolic systems of partial differential equations; Injection; Isotherms; Oil recovery; Organic chemistry; polymer flooding; Polymers; Porous media; Rocks
• ISSN: 0001-1541; 1547-5905
• DOI: 10.1002/aic.16735

Injection of water containing dissolved chemicals is an efficient oil recovery technique. One of the problems of this method is the loss of the chemical components due to interactions between rock and fluid. In polymer injection, adsorption may happen and lead to low process efficiency. The interaction between rock and fluid is governed by the adsorption isotherm, which relates the polymer concentration in water with the adsorbed amount on the rock. In this paper the problem of oil displacement by a water slug containing n chemical components that may be adsorbed is analyzed. The system of conservation laws is solved and the structure of the solution for the case of Henry's adsorption isotherm is completely described. The concentration profile of each component and the chromatographic cycle is calculated through simple expressions. The complete and detailed solution for the case of slug injection containing three chemical components is presented. The general solution developed can be used to model several Enhanced Oil Recovery techniques, in which the chemical components adsorb in porous media following Henry's adsorption isotherm.