Quantifying Enhanced Oil Recovery in Synthetic Media with MicroCT

International audienceEnhanced oil recovery methods are tested and optimized in syntheticmedia, emulating porosity and permeability of real oil-bearing rocks.Such a medium was produced with sintered bi-disperse glass beads andmicroCT images (4 µm resolution) were acquired at different stages offluid motion through the medium. Synthetic seawater with or without oil/water emulsion was used to recover oil previously saturating the medium´spores. The water was doped with KI to fine tune X-ray absorption. Thus,3D images showing the beads, doped water and residual oil presenteda 3-modal histogram. After denoising with a non-local means filter, theimages were segmented and the distribution of residual oil ganglia wasvisualized and quantified. Probability density functions of volumes (~10^4ganglia spanning 8 orders of magnitude) show well defined exponentialbehaviors for the displacement of oil by water, while the use of emulsionsprovides better recovery efficiency with larger numbers of larger gangli