Fabrications and Applications of Micro/nanofluidics in Oil and Gas Recovery: A Comprehensive Review

Understanding fluid flow characteristics in porous medium, which determines the development of oil and gas oilfields, has been a significant research subject for decades. Although using core samples is still essential, micro/nanofluidics have been attracting increasing attention in oil recovery fields since it offers direct visualization and quantification of fluid flow at the pore level. This work provides the latest techniques and development history of micro/nanofluidics in oil and gas recovery by summarizing and discussing the fabrication methods, materials and corresponding applications. Compared with other reviews of micro/nanofluidics, this comprehensive review is in the perspective of solving specific issues in oil and gas industry, including fluid characterization, multiphase fluid flow, enhanced oil recovery mechanisms, and fluid flow in nano-scale porous media of unconventional reservoirs, by covering most of the representative visible studies using micro/nanomodels. Finally, we present the challenges of applying micro/nanomodels and future research directions based on the work

3-Methyl-2,6-dinitro-N-(3-pent­yl)-4-[(2,3,4-tri-O-acetyl-β-d-xylos­yl)amino­methyl]­aniline

In the title compound, C24H34N4O11, the hexopyranosyl ring adopts a chair conformation. The four substituents are in equatorial positions. The mol­ecule shows an intra­molecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bond

A Dual-Porosity-Stokes Model and Finite Element Method for Coupling Dual-Porosity Flow and Free Flow

In this paper, we propose and numerically solve a new model considering confined flow in dual-porosity media coupled with free flow in embedded macrofractures and conduits. Such situation arises, for example, for fluid flows in hydraulic fractured tight/shale oil/gas reservoirs. The flow in dual-porosity media, which consists of both matrix and microfractures, is described by a dual-porosity model. And the flow in the macrofractures and conduits is governed by the Stokes equation. Then the two models are coupled through four physically valid interface conditions on the interface between dual-porosity media and macrofractures/conduits, which play a key role in a physically faithful simulation with high accuracy. All the four interface conditions are constructed based on fundamental properties of the traditional dual-porosity model and the well-known Stokes-Darcy model. The weak formulation is derived for the proposed model, and the well-posedness of the model is analyzed. A finite element semidiscretization in space is presented based on the weak formulation, and four different schemes are then utilized for the full discretization. The convergence of the full discretization with the backward Euler scheme is analyzed. Four numerical experiments are presented to validate the proposed model and demonstrate the features of both the model and the numerical method, such as the optimal convergence rate of the numerical solution, the detail flow characteristics around macrofractures and conduits, and the applicability to the real world problems

Dual fluorescent molecular substrates selectively report the activation, sustainability and reversibility of cellular PKB/Akt activity

Using a newly developed near-infrared (NIR) dye that fluoresces at two different wavelengths (dichromic fluorescence, DCF), we discovered a new fluorescent substrate for Akt, also known as protein kinase B, and a method to quantitatively report this enzyme\u27s activity in real time. Upon insulin activation of cellular Akt, the enzyme multi-phosphorylated a single serine residue of a diserine DCF substrate in a time-dependent manner, culminating in monophospho- to triphospho-serine products. The NIR DCF probe was highly selective for the Akt1 isoform, which was demonstrated using Akt1 knockout cells derived from MMTV-ErbB2 transgenic mice. The DCF mechanism provides unparalleled potential to assess the stimulation, sustainability, and reversibility of Akt activation longitudinally. Importantly, NIR fluorescence provides a pathway to translate findings from cells to living organisms, a condition that could eventually facilitate the use of these probes in humans

1-(2,3,4,6-Tetra-O-acetyl-β-d-gluco­pyranos­yl)-3-thio­ureidothio­urea monohydrate

In the title compound, C16H24N4O9S2·H2O, the hexopyranosyl ring adopts a chair conformation (4 C 1), and the five substituents are in equatorial positions. In the crystal structure, extensive O—H⋯O, N—H⋯S and N—H⋯O hydrogen bonding leads to the formation of a three-dimensional network

Applications of the alternating direction method of multipliers to the semidefinite inverse quadratic eigenvalue problem with a partial eigenstructure

National Natural Science Foundation of China [11271308]; Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province of China for Distinguished Young Scholars [2010J06002]; NCET; General Research Fund from Hong Kong Research Grants Council [203712]This paper shows that the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) is efficient for solving the semidefinite inverse quadratic eigenvalue problem (SDIQEP) with a partial eigenstructure. We derive several ADMM-based iterative schemes for SDIQEP and demonstrate their efficiency for large-scale cases of SDIQEP numerically

Orthogonal analysis of variants in APOE gene using in-silico approaches reveals novel disrupting variants

Introduction: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the most prominent medical conditions in the world. Understanding the genetic component of the disease can greatly advance our knowledge regarding its progression, treatment and prognosis. Single amino-acid variants (SAVs) in the APOE gene have been widely investigated as a risk factor for AD Studies, including genome-wide association studies, meta-analysis based studies, and in-vivo animal studies, were carried out to investigate the functional importance and pathogenesis potential of APOE SAVs. However, given the high cost of such large-scale or experimental studies, there are only a handful of variants being reported that have definite explanations. The recent development of in-silico analytical approaches, especially large-scale deep learning models, has opened new opportunities for us to probe the structural and functional importance of APOE variants extensively.Method: In this study, we are taking an ensemble approach that simultaneously uses large-scale protein sequence-based models, including Evolutionary Scale Model and AlphaFold, together with a few in-silico functional prediction web services to investigate the known and possibly disease-causing SAVs in APOE and evaluate their likelihood of being functional and structurally disruptive.Results: As a result, using an ensemble approach with little to no prior field-specific knowledge, we reported 5 SAVs in APOE gene to be potentially disruptive, one of which (C112R) was classificed by previous studies as a key risk factor for AD.Discussion: Our study provided a novel framework to analyze and prioritize the functional and structural importance of SAVs for future experimental and functional validation