Petroleum production yields large volumes of produced water (PW), which contains toxic components, e.g., crude oil, dissolved organics, etc. which might cause pollution if disposed to the sea. Produced water re-injection (PWRI) is an environmentally sound way of produced water management. PWRI is often considered to be the base case for new fields as regulations concerning the discharge of PW become stricter.
The limitation for PWRI is that the injectivity declines due to pore clogging in the reservoir by oil droplets and particles present in PW. To date, the retention phenomenon is not completely understood, although numerous studies are reported. The main reason is the inability of experimental techniques utilized (typically core-flooding) in the literature to visualize pore-scale events, leaving a number of gaps in the knowledge. Methods such as X-ray imaging would elucidate this matter; however, they are more expensive and complex to employ.

A MICROFLUIDICS METHOD DIMINISHING EXISTING GAPS

Microfluidics is a field of science that studies transport and manipulation phenomena of fluids in confined microchannels. In contrast to core-flooding, microfluidics allows visualization (imaging) of fluids at a pore-scale at a reasonable cost. The objectives of the project are the development of a microfluidic method and experimental investigation of the gaps found in the literature, to understand the factors influencing capture of droplets and particles in porous media.