Integrated Analysis of Permeability Reduction Caused by Polymer Retention for Better Understanding Polymer Transport

Abstract

Polymer retention is one of the most important factors to govern polymer propagation through porous media, determining whether successful or not. The focus of previous studies has been limited to polymer concentration loss caused by the retention; not only change in polymer concentration, but also reduction in reservoir permeability is the main issue for theoretical transport study. Due to the lack of accuracy of Langmuir isotherm describing the polymer retention mechanisms, this study proposes a new type of matching interpretation method to correlate the permeability reduction factors from experiments to permeability. In order to solve the problem of poorly matching results between estimation and observation, use of nonadsorptive constant conditionally selected in matching process was made. Based on the threshold permeability reduction factors, approximate critical permeability can be calculated to which nonadsorptive constant would be applied. Results showed significant improvements in the estimation of permeability reduction for both low and high permeability cores. In addition, effects of permeability reduction on polymer transport in field scale were analyzed using the proposed matching model. Thus, not only does this interpretation method help to evaluate prediction for accurate flow behavior, but also unwanted risk can be evaluated.