Incorporation of Homogenizer in Nanoemulsion Injection Scheme for Enhanced Oil Recovery

Abstract

This work presents a theoretical approach of incorporating a homogenizer within a nanoemulsion injection scheme for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Nanoemulsions are kinetically stable emulsions stabilized by surfactants with droplet sizes ranging from 20 to 500 nm and have the potential to deliver chemical agents depending on their application.  For EOR, nanoemulsions have the potential to be more effective than the often used microemulsion which are thermodynamically stable and thus may break due to the heterogeneous conditions inherent in oil and gas reservoirs.  There are two primary categories of nanoemulsion formulation which are high energy methods and low energy methods. High energy methods involve creating nanoemulsions using a high energy process such as high pressure homogenization.  These methods can be expensive due to the energy applied to the nanoemulsion formulation process. Low energy methods involve manipulating the chemistry of the oil and surfactant formulation and are thus low cost due to the low energy input. Current technology illustrates that nanoemulsion size control is relatively straightforward using high energy methods such as high pressure homogenization.  Injecting incompressible fluids into a reservoir requires substantial energy in the form of pumps.  Incorporating a homogenizer in the injection scheme gives an opportunity for the homogenizer to utilize the high energy inherent in the injection process.  This is illustrated using the mechanical energy balance that combines the potential, kinetic, friction, and homogenizer pressure drops inherent in the incorporation of a homogenizer in the injection of nanoemulsions.  Analysis shows the relative contributions of each of these pressure effects in the overall determination of the bottom hole injection pressure. Incorporating a homogenizer into a nanoemulsion EOR process would schematically give direct control over nanoemulsion size while conserving energy by using the high energy inherent in an EOR injection process.  This would be a novel direct approach of controlling the stability of nanoemulsions (by controlling the size) while not producing extra costs associated with high energy nanoemulsion creation methods.  The describe procedure illustrates how to design an injection performance curve that can schematically give control of nanoemulsion size.