Dou Xiaoxiao, Chen Zhewen, Zuo Pingcheng, Cao Xiaojian, Liu Jianlin
College of Pipeline and Civil Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao, 266580, China.
Sci Rep. 2021 Oct 28;11(1):21282. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-00744-2.
Foams are substances widely used the foam flooding technology, which aim to greatly improve the residual oil recovery. In the present study, we perform a comprehensive investigation on the oil removal process driven by the foam embedded with magnetic particles, under the action of the magnetic force. The experiment shows that the addition of magnetic particles has little effect on the stability of the foam. During the motion of the foam, its maximum displacement and maximum acceleration are fully explored. Such factors as the volume of the foam, the volume of the oil droplet, the mass concentration of magnetic particles, and the Young's contact angle of surfactant on solid are surveyed in detail. The function curves of the maximum displacement and the maximum acceleration with respect to these variables are obtained in the experiment, and the selection of some optimal parameters is advised. Moreover, the dimensional analysis has been conducted and several scaling laws are given, which are in agreement with the experimental results. These findings are beneficial to understand the oil displacement with the aid of magnetic field, which also provide some inspirations on drug delivery, robots and micro-fluidics.
泡沫是泡沫驱油技术中广泛使用的物质，其目的是大幅提高残余油采收率。在本研究中，我们对在磁力作用下由嵌入磁性颗粒的泡沫驱动的除油过程进行了全面研究。实验表明，磁性颗粒的添加对泡沫的稳定性影响很小。在泡沫运动过程中，充分探究了其最大位移和最大加速度。详细考察了泡沫体积、油滴体积、磁性颗粒质量浓度以及表面活性剂在固体上的杨氏接触角等因素。通过实验得到了最大位移和最大加速度相对于这些变量的函数曲线，并给出了一些最佳参数的选择建议。此外，进行了量纲分析并给出了几个标度律，这些标度律与实验结果一致。这些发现有助于借助磁场理解驱油过程，也为药物输送、机器人和微流体学提供了一些启示。
