Produção e avaliação de rochas areníticas sintéticas para ensaios de recuperação avançada de petróleo

• Ano de defesa: 2021
• Autor(a) principal: Costa, Semuel Ebenezer Dantas
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte; Brasil; UFRN; PROGRAMA DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM QUÍMICA
• Palavras-chave em Português: Química do Petróleo; Rochas areníticas sintéticas; Propriedades petrofísicas; Resistência à compressão uniaxial; Recuperação avançada de petróleo
• Link de acesso: https://repositorio.ufrn.br/handle/123456789/45433

Due to modern society dependence on petroleum derivatives, researches about its exploration and production have become extremely important. Since the natural rocks commonly used in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) laboratorial trials are not always easy to obtain and also may be heterogeneous, the utilization of synthetic similar materials appear as an alternative to analysis and evaluation of EOR methods. Therefore, the present work aims to produce and evaluate synthetic sandstone rocks that may replace natural ones in EOR studies. To achieve that goal, rocks were created by mixing quartz beach sand and ceramic, diatomite and kaolinite clays, using a 23 factorial experimental design and triplicate in the central point. During the making of the rocks, the binder concentration, compaction pressure and sintering temperature were changed, in order to evaluate the petrophysical and mechanical characteristics of the synthetic sandstone rocks. Conventional oil recovery tests were also carried out, varying the clay concentration of the porous medium and the dislocating fluid injection flow rate, in addition to the enhanced oil recovery through the chemical method of nanoemulsion injection. The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) indicated that the porosity, permeability and uniaxial compressive strength models obtained were both predictive and significant, reaching determination coefficients of at least 0.95276. In addition, the petrophysical properties of the manufactured rocks presented similar values to those from sandstone rocks from the Berea Formation (Appalachian Basin/USA) and the Botucatu Formation (Paraná Basin/Brazil), commonly used in EOR studies, with porosities from 17.89 to 36.78% and water permeabilities from 14.34 to 201.98 mD. The best results were obtained with the ceramic clay rocks, which presented higher amount of funding minerals and, with this clay, it was observed that the oil recovery factors were higher in more porous and permeable rocks, at lower injection rates. Additionally, the nanoemulsion injection achieved a recovery factor 8.6% higher than its respective conventional stage by causing the decrease in interfacial tension and due to its high miscibility capability.