Quantifying Enhanced Oil Recovery in Synthetic Media with MicroCT
Abstract
Enhanced oil recovery methods are tested and optimized in synthetic
media, emulating porosity and permeability of real oil-bearing rocks.
Such a medium was produced with sintered bi-disperse glass beads and
microCT images (4 µm resolution) were acquired at different stages of
fluid motion through the medium. Synthetic seawater with or without oil/
water emulsion was used to recover oil previously saturating the medium´s
pores. The water was doped with KI to fine tune X-ray absorption. Thus,
3D images showing the beads, doped water and residual oil presented
a 3-modal histogram. After denoising with a non-local means filter, the
images were segmented and the distribution of residual oil ganglia was
visualized and quantified. Probability density functions of volumes (~10^4
ganglia spanning 8 orders of magnitude) show well defined exponential
behaviors for the displacement of oil by water, while the use of emulsions
provides better recovery efficiency with larger numbers of larger ganglia