Abstract:
Applications of nanotechnology in the oil and gas industry have been on the rise over the past decade. As a major step forward in realizing a useful “Reservoir-on-a-Chip,” a method has been developed to fabricate synthetic carbonate reservoir micromodels by in-situ growing a layer of calcite nanocrystals in the glass microfluidic channels. The dimensions and geometries of the micromodels are controllable; and the wettability of the calcite-coated microchannels can be tuned to simulated oil reservoir conditions, making the oil-wet surface more faithfully resemble a natural carbonate reservoir rock. With the advantage of its excellent optical transparency, the micromodel allows us to directly visualize and quantify the complex multiphase flows and geochemical fluid−calcite interactions by advanced spectroscopic and microscopic imaging techniques. This calcite-coated micromodel system allows us, for example, to perform a water−oil displacement experiment in very small-volume samples for dramatically-accelerated screening of candidate chemical additive formulations for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) operations.