Brine Ions and Mechanism of Low Salinity Water Injection in Enhanced Oil Recovery: A Review

摘要

Brine ion improvement and optimization in water flooding is one of the topics which have attracted many researchers in the recent years. Numerous studies have identified Crude Oil/Brine/Rock (COBR) interactions as the main factor contributing to oil recovery factor in both sandstone and carbonate rocks. The current study is a review on previous researches on brine ions and mechanism of Low Salinity Water Injection (LSWI) in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). Results of this literature show that Low Salinity Surfactant Flooding (LSSF) can be introduced as the inter medium method between LSW and surfactant flooding, which includes both of their late benefits (wettability alteration and interfacial tension reduction) simultaneously. Moreover application of software as powerful tools for both simulation and optimization as new cost effective and precise utilization methods have been looked at. In regard with the latest argument two software are introduced; Design of Experiment (DOE) programs which dedicate to LSWI studies as a core medium to simulate LSWI experiments and on the other hand simulation programs to identify the corresponding COBR interactions while LSWI using new software such as UTCHEM software. According to combined results from UTCHEM and experimental tests the main mechanism behind LSWI is wettability alteration to identifying contributors of which special attention is required to determine the main factors involved in, which requires more detailed researches as the actual attributors are not yet known.