Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Measurements of streaming potential have been recently used as a mon-
itoring technique in hydrocarbon reservoirs (Saunders et al., 2006, 2008;
Jackson, 2010).
5.7
Mathematical Modeling of EKEOR
EK assisted mass transport of hydrocarbon compounds in natural porous
media has gained much attention not only for environmental mitigation of
contaminating oils (Pamukcu, 1994; Pamukcu et al., 1995; Pamukcu and
Pervizpour, 1998; Kim et al., 2000Yang and Liu, 2001; Reddy and Saicheck,
2004; Reddy et al., 2006; Korolev et al., 2008; Pamukcu, 2009), but also for
recovery of reservoir oils over the past decades (Amba et al., 1964; Amba et
al., 1965; Chilingar et al., 1968, 1970; Killough and Gonzalez, 1986; Wittle et
al., 2006 a,b, 2008 a,b,c, 2011; Haroun et al., 2009; Jihong et al., 2009; Hill et
al., 2010; Ghazanfari et al., 2012a,2012b, 2013; Al Shalabi et al., 2012). Some
of the contributing factors to the oil production in EKEOR are reported as
(i) viscous drag of oil with EO flow of the water phase, primarily controlled by
the oil/water ratio and the hydraulic and EO permeability of the formation,
(ii) reduction of oil-water interfacial tension due to electrochemical transfor-
mation of oil that affect its viscosity, hence increases its mobility, (iii) reduc-
tion in the formation oil viscosity due to joule heating, and (iii) increase in
the permeability of the formation rock under applied electric field (Chilingar
et al., 1968; Wittle et al., 2006 a, 2008 b; Haroun et al., 2009; Hill et al., 2010;
Ghazanfari, 2013). Most of the work in this area is experimental work in
the laboratory, and the analytical study in this area is limited (Killough and
Gonzalez, 1986; Ghazanfari et al., 2013).
In this section, we provide an insight into the mathematical modeling of
EK enhanced oil recovery (EKEOR). Although the transient changes in the
viscosity of formation oil and the non-isothermal effects contribute to the
oil production in EKEOR, viscous drag of oil with EO flow of the water is
believed to be the main contributing factor to the oil recovery which is the
focus of the model presented here.
5.8
Fundamental Governing Equations for
EKEOR Model
Before discussing the governing equations of two-phase flow under applied
electrical and pressure gradients, first we review the fundamental govern-
ing equations for single and two-phase flow systems under applied pres-
sure gradient in the following section.
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