Dielectric Properties of Flocculated Water-in-Oil Emulsions

摘要

When an offshore oil field is near completion, water occupies a large fraction of the available pore volume. Thus, in collecting the oil and gas reserves, one has to deal with a high co-production of either formation- or injected water. This doctoral thesis focuses on the effect of water-in-oil emulsions on the dielectric properties, in particular the effect of flocculation. Various dielectric models are applied to obtain methods for qualitative and quantitative characterization of the flocculated state. Permittivity and measurement of dielectric properties are discussed as a basis for the interpretation of the dielectric properties of the emulsions. Various flocculation models are presented. It is concluded that the dielectric properties of water-in-oil emulsions are strongly influenced by continuously ongoing processes in the system. Because of flocculation and sedimentation the traditional dielectric mixture models cannot satisfactorily predict the dielectric behaviour. The experimentally obtained permittivities for the emulsions can be reproduced by including flocculation in the models and treating the floc aggregates as spheroids or subsystems with dielectric properties given by the degree of flocculation. The models discussed have difficulties reproducing the complete frequency behaviour found experimentally. This is probably because the dielectric relaxation may be influenced by processes not included in the models, such as the effects of dipolar or multipolar interactions between the droplets. For further research it is recommended that rheological and dielectric measurements be combined. 227 refs., 61 figs., 16 tabs.