Linares, Natalia

Hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) has enabled recovery of natural gas and oil embedded in low permeability reservoirs. Despite its advancement in significant recovery of hydrocarbons not previously accessible from low permeability reservoirs, understanding the particle interactions and injected fluid retraction is lacking. The goal of this project is to investigate fluid dynamics of the fracking fluid (particle-laden flow) under instant fluid injection and withdrawal. We will use a microfluidic-based approach in order to visualize a fluid displacement as well as particle-particle interactions in a micromodel that mimics the flow in actual reservoirs. Nanoporous spherical silica particles in diameter of 0.1 mm are going to be utilized in this project. A high-speed visualization tool will characterize the dynamic and complex nature of particle transportation, deposition and their interactions under dynamic flow conditions. In addition, the role of surface properties on these behaviors will be tested.

More than 1 trillion barrels of oil deposited worldwide
is heavy oil and natural bitumen. Due to their
high viscosity and high density, extraction efficiency
of heavy oil and bitumen from natural reservoirs
is known to be less than 5% with the conventional
primary recovery methods. To increase their recovery
efficiency, a technique, known as enhanced oil
recovery, has been developed using nanoparticles,
surfactant, dispersant, and polymers. Among these
materials, surfactants and dispersants lower interfacial
tension between oil and the resident fluid; therefore
enhance mobilization of oil. The objective of this
project is to further improve the recovery efficiency
of heavy oil by a combined effect of surfactant and
dispersant. When the mixture of surfactant and dispersant
in an aqueous solution is injected to oil-rich
porous media, microfluidic visualization techniques
will be employed to investigate the overall recovery
rate. The possibility and effectiveness of the proposed idea will be discussed.