Title: Design and fabrication of microfluidic test kit for enhanced oil recovery in low salinity NaCl flooding

Authors: Sanggono Adisasmito; Rhesa Muhammad Faisal

Addresses: Department of Chemical Engineering, Bandung Institute of Technology, Bandung, West Java, 40132, Indonesia ' Department of Chemical Engineering, Bandung Institute of Technology, Bandung, West Java, 40132, Indonesia

Abstract: A microfluidic test kit with a flowrate capacity of 0.01-100 µL/min and pressure of 0-50 psig was designed and fabricated to test four series of salinity injections and subsequently compare the recovery factor (RF). Homogeneous rock patterns with PMMA material were used to create a microfluidic chip with a porosity of 27.8% and a permeability of 2.8 Darcy. The crude oil has an API of 31.9, while the formation water has 10,958 ppm in salinity. The injection solutions were NaCl with 600, 6,000, and 11,000 ppm salinity. The injection was then visualised and processed by a program in Python language to obtain saturation data and recovery factor. An increase in RF was observed in the NaCl injections with salinity lower than formation water. The highest RF, up to 30%, was generated from 600 ppm of NaCl injection. [Received: November 23, 2021; Accepted: August 7, 2022]

Keywords: enhanced oil recovery; low salinity waterflooding; microfluidic test kit; recovery factor; experimental investigation; homogeneous rock pattern; polymethyl methacrylate; PMMA; microfluidic device.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOGCT.2023.130994

International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology, 2023 Vol.33 No.2, pp.103 - 121

Received: 23 Nov 2021
Accepted: 07 Aug 2022
Published online: 17 May 2023 *

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