The Effect of DC Electrical Potential on Enhancing Sandstone Reservoir Permeability and Oil Recovery

Abstract

The merits of using electrokinetic phenomena to improve reservoir permeability on sandstone reservoir core plugs are investigated with detail clay mineralogy studies. Normal and reverse DC configuration is applied along with waterflood and studies are conducted on single-phase and two-phase fluid saturation conditions. The produced brines are acid digested and analyzed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS). In single-phase flow experiments, permeability enhanced 180% with the normal electrode configuration but negligible change is observed in reverse configuration. In two-phase flow 59% and 10% permeability enhancement is observed in normal and reverse configurations, respectively. In addition, 11.6% additional oil is recovered from normal configuration. The results are examined in terms of electrolyte movement and resulting changes within the clay microstructure. In normal electrode configuration, formation of colloidal clay suspension and flowing out along with produced brine is evident. This has resulted in increased pore passage and core permeability, whereas in the reverse configuration, clay structures remained unchanged. The given explanations are supported by ICP-MS and X-ray diffraction results.     

Performance Analysis of Free Space Optical Networks Using the Beta-Average Recursive Estimator

The present paper aims to investigate and analyze the performance of a point-to-point optical network under a free-space optical (FSO) communication system. Free-space optical communication is a sophisticated technique that has been employed as a channel model of optical wireless communication to transfer large amounts of data at high speeds. However, two important issues, that could affect the source of the FSO link, have been added. The first one is related to chromatic dispersion which is attributed to the chirping phenomenon of the optical signal; the second issue concerns the secondary jamming power that can be generated by some Radio Frequencies from base stations. It is important to note that the effects of atmospheric turbulence, misalignment fading, and atmospheric attenuation as well as geometric losses were also taken into account. The purpose of this research work is to overcome these effects, in order to increase the data transmission rate from 1.25 to 50 Gbps in the proposed system. Consequently, a very efficient solution is suggested to correct these problems and to make the FSO link more reliable using the Beta-Average Recursive Estimator. In addition, the numerical results obtained are presented for the purpose of validating our proposal through the evaluation of the performance of a transmission link in terms of the bit error rate and Q-factor. In the end, the resulting conclusions are listed, explained and discussed.

     

Effective enhancement of electric and magnetic properties of PMMA/LiFe5O8 nanocomposites via magnetic treatment

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - The present study presents a facile effective method to enhance the electric as well as the magnetic properties of polymer/ferrite...     

When does a vessel become a pipe?

The conditions under which the transient outflow from a punctured pipeline may be approximated as that emanating from a vessel using a simplified analytically based vessel blowdown model (VBM) is investigated in this article. The above addresses the fundamental drawback of long computational run times associated with the numerically based techniques used for simulating pipeline puncture failures. The efficacy of the VBM is tested by comparison of its predictions against simulation data obtained using a validated rigorous but computationally demanding numerical technique based on the method of characteristics. The results show that the accuracy of the VBM increases with decreasing puncture/pipe diameter ratio, line pressure, and increasing pipeline length. Surprisingly, the VBM produces more accurate predictions for two‐phase mixtures when compared with permanent gases. This is found to be a consequence of the better applicability of the isothermal bulk fluid decompression assumption within the pipeline in the case of two‐phase mixtures. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2011     

Hydroxyapatite starting from calcium carbonate and orthophosphoric acid: synthesis,characterization, and applications

Hydroxyapatite [Ca₁₀(PO₄)₆(OH)₂], Ca-HA, is the emblematic mineral phase of bones, and is known for its complexity and difficult to reproduce chemical synthesis. Among the routes developed for obtaining this calcium phosphate, the so-called double-decomposition method is well described and often utilized. However, the Ca-HA synthesized by this way forms a larger mass of ammonium nitrate by-product than the desired product itself. Pure Ca-HA for orthopedic or dental applications usually uses thermal treatment to eliminate residual nitrogen compounds by releasing them in the atmosphere. Contemporary sol–gel methods currently in fashion produce even more degradation products including solvents and precursor organics. We now report on a green synthesis procedure which makes pure Ca-HA with minimum by-product. The synthesis calls for reacting phosphoric acid with calcium carbonate in water suspension to form a Ca-HA gel of fine particles. This gel can be filtered and the solids recovered, dried, and sintered, but can also be used as-is for environmental applications such as heavy metal ions or textile dye removal from polluted waste streams. This green Ca-HA has been used to trap heavy metals in flue gases and in municipal waste water treatment plants. This low-cost and low-environmental impact material can be developed for medical use because of its absence of impurities, and in catalytic productions for remediation of many environmental problems. Recent results show Ca-HA can also serve in reforming biogas compositions into useful products, after deposition of selected metal elements. Some of these results will be communicated in this paper.     

Direct numerical simulation of reactive absorption in gas–liquid flow on structured packing using interface capturing method

Direct numerical simulations are performed in order to study physical and reactive absorption in gas–liquid flow on structured packing. The volume of fluid method is used to capture the gas-liquid interface motion. The mass transport is computed by additional chemical species concentration transport equation with adequate modelling of solubility and chemical reaction. The numerical difficulties arise in imposing jump discontinuity for chemical concentrations at the interface due to different solubility. These difficulties are solved by an original method using a continuum mechanical modelling of two phases flow and Henry's law with constant coefficient. The present study shows how the mass transfer is affected by the complex geometry considered here and by the flow conditions. The results show firstly that the liquid side mass transfer is well predicted by the Higbie theory and the exposure time of a typical element of volume near the interface corresponds to ratio between characteristic length and velocity of the interface provided that the real velocity of the interface is used. For the considered geometry, the transfer is found to be increased compared to the transfer of a plane liquid film. Finally, for the case where the mass transfer is accompanied by second order irreversible chemical reaction in the liquid phase, the numerical results are compared to approximate solution presented by Brian et al. [1961. Penetration theory for gas absorption accompanied by a second order chemical reaction. A.I.Ch.E. J. 7, 226–231] and good agreement is observed.     

Preparation and antimicrobial activity of poly (vinyl chloride)/gelatin/montmorillonite biocomposite films

The aim of this study was using a novel antimicrobial thermoplastic plasticizer based on aliphatic anhydride derivative dodecenyl succinic anhydride (DSA) for blending poly (vinyl chloride), PVC, with gelatin in presence of montmorillonite (MMT) using Brabender via polymer melting technique. This anhydride-based plasticizer blended the membrane ingredients homogenously under melting process. The used plasticizer exhibited high performance antimicrobial potency for some biomedical and industrial applications. The prepared biocomposite films were evaluated for antimicrobial activity using agar disc diffusion method against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria such as: Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), Klebsiella pneumonia (K. pneumonia), Bacillus cereus (B. cereus), Bacillus subtilis (B. subtilis) and Escherichia coli (E. coli). The majority of these biocomposites, except the plasticized PVC with DOP, have shown inhibitory effect at different concentrations (1.0–20) mg/ml against all above mentioned bacteria. However, C. albicans and A. niger were the most resistant strains.