Karnwal Aditya, Pandit Yugal Kishor, Roy Chandana, Mahto Vikas, Sahu Chandan
Department of Petroleum Engineering, IIT (ISM), Dhanbad, Jharkhand 826004, India.
ACS Omega. 2025 Jul 28;10(30):32774-32790. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.5c00597. eCollection 2025 Aug 5.
Preformed particle gels (PPGs) have been introduced as an efficacious chemical technology to alleviate or reduce unwanted water production from heterogeneous mature oil fields. However, there are some limitations to the existing developed PPGs, such as mechanical robustness, temperature stability, and formation fluid resistance. To address these limitations, a nanomaterial-reinforced preformed particle gel was introduced. In this current research work, the authors have reported a new type of novel nanomaterial-reinforced PPG using the reinforcement of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanomaterial, methacrylic acid, ,-dimethyl acrylamide as a monomer, and ,-methylene bis acrylamide as a cross-linker. The newly developed reinforced PPG, termed RF-PPG, shows high mechanical strength and exceptional long-term thermal resistance, salinity tolerance, and pH resistance. The resulting PPG (RF-PPG) exhibited superior performance compared to conventional PPG (without nanomaterial), i.e., WRF-PPG. Preformed particle gel with reinforcement (RF-PPG) has shown the equilibrium swelling of 119 and 32 in distilled water and 30,000 ppm of NaCl brine solution, respectively. The elastic modulus of RF-PPG is up to 2100 Pa, which is significantly higher than the particle gel without reinforcement (WRF-PPG), i.e., 600 Pa. Moreover, the swelling characteristics of RF-PPG, in high salinity and pH, show less variation, although the swelling capacity of RF-PPG is less in different solvents as compared to WRF-PPG. The nanomaterial reinforcement significantly improved the long-term thermal resistance for more than 185 days in 30,000 ppm of NaCl brine solution at 100 °C and shows an increment in swelling at higher temperatures. Laboratory sandpack flooding study demonstrated that RF-PPG provides exceptional plugging capacity of more than 90% and residual resistance factor of 11.92 and 15.03 for high permeable sandpacks at 100 °C. Considering the unique characteristics of the engineered preformed particle gel, RF-PPG is ideally suited for water shutoff jobs in heterogeneous reservoirs.
预制颗粒凝胶（PPGs）已作为一种有效的化学技术被引入，用于缓解或减少非均质成熟油田中不必要的产水。然而，现有的已开发PPGs存在一些局限性，如机械强度、温度稳定性和地层流体耐受性。为了解决这些局限性，引入了一种纳米材料增强的预制颗粒凝胶。在当前这项研究工作中，作者报道了一种新型的纳米材料增强PPG，它使用氧化锌（ZnO）纳米材料、甲基丙烯酸、N,N - 二甲基丙烯酰胺作为单体以及N,N - 亚甲基双丙烯酰胺作为交联剂进行增强。新开发的增强型PPG，称为RF - PPG，具有高机械强度以及出色的长期耐热性、耐盐性和耐pH值性。所得的PPG（RF - PPG）与传统PPG（无纳米材料）即WRF - PPG相比，表现出卓越的性能。增强型预制颗粒凝胶（RF - PPG）在蒸馏水和30000 ppm的NaCl盐水溶液中的平衡溶胀度分别为119和32。RF - PPG的弹性模量高达2100 Pa，显著高于未增强的颗粒凝胶（WRF - PPG），即600 Pa。此外，尽管与WRF - PPG相比，RF - PPG在不同溶剂中的溶胀能力较小，但在高盐度和pH值条件下，RF - PPG的溶胀特性变化较小。纳米材料增强显著提高了在100°C的30000 ppm NaCl盐水溶液中超过185天的长期耐热性，并且在较高温度下溶胀增加。实验室填砂驱替研究表明，RF - PPG在100°C时对高渗透填砂层具有超过90%的出色封堵能力以及11.92和15.03的残余阻力系数。考虑到工程化预制颗粒凝胶的独特特性，RF - PPG非常适合非均质油藏的堵水作业。
