Experimental Study of Transport Behavior of Swellable Microgel Particles in Superpermeable Channels for Conformance Control

Gel treatment is an effective way to attack excessive water production during oil development. The transport behavior of gel materials in reservoirs is of crucial importance to the effectiveness of gel treatments. The aim of this paper is investigating the transport behavior of swellable micrometer-sized preformed particle gels (PPGs, or microgels) through superpermeable (super-K) channels. Sandpacks with permeabilities ranging from 27 to 221 darcies were used to mimic the super-K channels. Multiple pressure sensors were applied along the sandpack models to monitor the propagation behavior of the microgels. The tested microgel particles could transport through the super-K channels, and a higher driving pressure gradient was required when the particle/pore size ratio was larger. The pressure gradient distribution along the super-K channels was relatively uniform when the particle/pore ratio was low (less than 1.3). However, the inlet section would show increasingly higher pressure gradients as the particle/pore ratio was increased, indicating increased difficulty in propagation. The propagation of the gel particles was significantly slower compared with the carrying fluid. The delayed propagation behavior was more pronounced when the particle/pore ratio was higher. The injection pressure was much less sensitive to the injection flow rate compared with a Newtonian fluid. The gel dispersion exhibited an apparent shear thinning (pseudoplastic) behavior when transporting through the porous channels. Breakage of the gel particles was observed especially at high superficial velocities. The particle breakage was partially responsible for the apparent shear thinning behavior. The breakage phenomenon was in favor of deep placement of the gel particles. The channel permeabilities were significantly reduced by the microgels, bringing sufficient resistance to subsequent waterflooding (more than 99.5%). At given matching size conditions, softer gels were more likely to establish in-depth placement and uniform water blocking capacity in the channels. The microgel particles exhibited salinity-responsive behavior to the post-brine flush. The gel particles could shrink and reswell according to the salinity of the injected water. Possibilities were discussed to use this salinity-responsive behavior. Also, the microgels exhibited a particular disproportionate permeability reduction (DPR) effect. After gel injection, the channel permeability to water flow was reduced by more than 20 to 92 times of the permeability to oil flow. This work provides important support to understand the transport behavior of gel particles in super-K channels. The achievements are helpful for gel product selection and gel treatment design

Selective Penetration Behavior of Microgels in Superpermeable Channels and Reservoir Matrices

Gel treatment is an effective way to attack excessive water production in many mature oilfields around the world. Selective penetration is desired for successful gel treatments. That is, gel materials should easily penetrate the target zones (i.e., channeling features such as superpermeable channels) without entering/damaging the nontarget zones (i.e., reservoir matrices or oil zones). This study revealed that presence of threshold penetration pressure (ΔPth) was responsible for selective penetration behavior of tested microgels. The concept of ΔPth was utilized to figure out favorable working conditions for effective gel treatments. Microgel dispersions were injected into superpermeable (super-k) sandpacks (mimicking super-k channels in reservoirs, 60–221 darcies), heterogeneous models with super-k channels (79–230 darcies), and sandstone cores (mimicking reservoir matrices, 50–5000 md). The results demonstrated that a minimum differential driving pressure (i.e., threshold penetration pressure, ΔPth) was required to push microgel particles to penetrate channels or matrices. The critical penetration behavior was closely related to the particle/pore size ratio. Low ΔPth at smaller particle/pore ratios was beneficial to allow easy penetration of gel materials into the channeling zones. On the contrary, high ΔPth at larger particle/pore ratios was desirable to prevent gel materials from massively invading and damaging the matrices. Instead, the gel particles accumulated at the inlet surface, and a gel cake was gradually formed. The cake further prevented the invasion of the gels. The cake could be removed by chemical breakers to resume the injectivity/productivity of the matrices. Correlations were developed to describe the relationship between ΔPth and particle/pore ratio. A distinct transition was identified at the particle/pore ratio of about 3. This work could help identify the favorable conditions to achieve successful gel treatments. In an effective conformance treatment, the particle/pore ratio in the channel should be sufficiently low to allow easy penetration of gel materials into the channel (e.g., particle/pore ratiostudy). Meanwhile, the particle/pore ratio in the matrix should be large enough to support a high ΔPth and thus prevent massive gel invasion into the matrix. This study advances the current pore scale studies (a single particle passing through a single channel) to Darcy-scale characterization

Localized and Propagated Surface Plasmons in Metal Nanoparticles and Nanowires

Surface plasmons are coherent electron oscillations behaving as localized and propagated modes in metal nanoparticles and nanowires, respectively. In this chapter, we first review some of the applications made in plasmonics with gold nanorods/nanospheres and silver nanowires. For gold nanoparticles with a size of 1–100 nm, the surface plasmons are confined around the particle surface as localized modes to enhance the near-field. For diameter of around 200–300 nm silver nanowires with a length up to 10 μm, the surface plasmons can propagate along the nanowires as waveguide modes to guide the plasmons. We then describe some novel results with regarding to gold nanorod enhanced light emission, silver nanowire supported plasmonic waveguide, gold nanosphere mediated whispering-gallery-mode emission, and energy conversion in silver-polymer plasmonic nanostructures. The work of this chapter highlights the applications of metal nanoparticles and nanowires in plasmonic waveguides to achieve optical energy generation, propagation, and conversion

Rice microtubule‐associated protein IQ67‐DOMAIN14 regulates rice grain shape by modulating microtubule cytoskeleton dynamics

Cortical microtubule (MT) arrays play a critical role in plant cell shape determination by defining the direction of cell expansion. As plants continuously adapt to ever‐changing environmental conditions, multiple environmental and developmental inputs need to be translated into changes of the MT cytoskeleton. Here, we identify and functionally characterize an auxin‐inducible and MT‐localized protein OsIQ67‐DOMAIN14 (OsIQD14), which is highly expressed in rice seed hull cells. We show that while deficiency of OsIQD14 results in short and wide seeds and increases overall yield, overexpression leads to narrow and long seeds, caused by changed MT alignment. We further show that OsIQD14‐mediated MT reordering is regulated by specifically affecting MT dynamics, and ectopic expression of OsIQD14 in Arabidopsis could change the cell shape both in pavement cells and hypocotyl cells. Additionally, OsIQD14 activity is tightly controlled by calmodulin proteins, providing an alternative way to modify the OsIQD14 activity. Our results indicate that OsIQD14 acts as a key factor in regulating MT rearrangements in rice hull cells and hence the grain shape, and allows effective local cell shape manipulation to improve the rice yield trait

A Rational Self-Sacrificing Template Route to LiMn

Single-crystalline LiMn2O4 nanotubes and nanowires have been synthesized via a low-temperature molten salt synthesis method, using the prepared β-MnO2 nanotubes and α-MnO2 nanowires as the precursors and self-sacrificing template. The materials were investigated by a variety of techniques, including X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). The results indicate that the prepared LiMn2O4 nanotube and nanowire samples are both spinel phase, have lengths up to several micrometers and diameters of hundreds and tens of nanometers, respectively

Observation of Full-Parameter Jones Matrix in Bilayer Metasurface

Metasurfaces, artificial 2D structures, have been widely used for the design of various functionalities in optics. Jones matrix, a 2*2 matrix with eight parameters, provides the most complete characterization of the metasurface structures in linear optics, and the number of free parameters (i.e., degrees of freedom, DOFs) in the Jones matrix determines the limit to what functionalities we can realize. Great efforts have been made to continuously expand the number of DOFs, and a maximal number of six has been achieved recently. However, the realization of 'holy grail' goal with eight DOFs (full free parameters) has been proven as a great challenge so far. Here, we show that by cascading two layer metasurfaces and utilizing the gradient descent optimization algorithm, a spatially varying Jones matrix with eight DOFs is constructed and verified numerically and experimentally in optical frequencies. Such ultimate control unlocks new opportunities to design optical functionalities that are unattainable with previously known methodologies and may find wide potential applications in optical fields.Comment: 53 paegs, 4 figure