Use of Betaine-Based Gel and Its Potential Application in Enhanced Oil Recovery

Gels

Michal Slaný¹  Yuman Wu²  Yongfei Li²  Jie Zhang²  Gang Chen²  Sanbao Dong² 

[1] Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 9, 845 36 Bratislava, Slovakia;Shaanxi Province Key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution Control and Reservoir Protection Technology of Oilfields, Xi’an Shiyou University, Xi’an 710065, China;

关键词: viscoelastic;    fracturing fluid;    temperature resistance;    oil displacement;    surfactant;   

DOI  :  10.3390/gels8060351

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

In this paper, a betaine-based gel containing 2.0% erucamide propyl betaine (EAPB), 0.5% oleic acid amide propyl betaine (OAPB), and 0.1% KCl was prepared for use as a fracturing fluid. The performance evaluation showed that KCl may improve the temperature resistance and increase the viscosity of the optimized fracturing fluid. At 80 °C, the apparent viscosity of the viscoelastic surfactant (VES)-based fracturing fluid was approximately 50 mPa·s. Furthermore, the gel had high shear resistance, good viscosity stability, and high sand-carrying performance. After being sheared at 170 s⁻¹ for 60 min, the reduction in viscosity was 13.6%. The viscosity of the gel was relatively stable at room temperature (27 °C) for one week. In a suspension containing 10% sand (particle size < 0.45 mm, density = 2.75 g cm⁻³), the settling velocity of proppant particles was 1.15 cm h⁻¹. In addition, we detected that the critical micelle concentration of this gel was approximately 0.042 wt%. The viscosity could be reduced to <5 mPa·s at 60 °C within 1 h when 6.0% crude oil was present, and oil displacement experiments showed that the broken fracturing fluid can enhance the oil displacement rate up to 14.5%. This work may facilitate research on fracturing fluids and oil recovery.

【 授权许可】

Unknown