Abstract The use of foam in gas enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes has the potential to improve oil recovery by reducing gas mobility. Nanoparticles are a promising alternative to surfactants in creating foam in the harsh environments found in many oil fields. We conducted several CO2-in-brine foam generation experiments in Boise sandstones with surface-treated silica nanoparticle in high-salinity conditions. All the experiments were conducted at the fixed CO2 volume fraction (g = 0.75) and fixed flow rate which changed in steps. We started at low flow rates, increased to a medium flow rates followed by decreasing and then increasing into high flow rates. The steady-state foam apparent viscosity was measured as a function of injection velocity.
The foam flowing through the cores showed higher foam generation and consequently higher apparent viscosity as the flow rate increased from low to medium and high velocities. At very high velocities, once foam bubbles were finely textured, the foam apparent viscosity was governed by foam shear-thinning rheology rather than foam creation. A noticeable "hysteresis" occurred when the flow velocity was initially increased and then decreased, implying multiple (coarse and strong) foam states at the same superficial velocity.
A normalized generation function was combined with CMG-STARS foam model to cover the full spectrum of foam flow behavior observed during the experiments. The new foam model successfully captures foam generation and hysteresis trends observed in presented experiments in this study and other foam generation experiments at different operational conditions (e.g. fixed pressure drop at fixed foam quality, and fixed pressure drop at fixed water velocity) from the literature.
The results indicate once foam is generated in porous media, it is possible to maintain strong foam at low injection rates. This makes foam more feasible in field applications where foam generation is limited by high injection rates (or high pressure gradient) that may only exist near the injection well. Therefore, understanding of foam generation, and foam hysteresis in porous media and accurate modeling of the process are necessary steps for efficient foam design in field.