Influence of pH on dynamics of microbial enhanced oil recovery processes using biosurfactant producing Pseudomonas putida: Mathematical modelling and numerical simulation.
In present work, the influence of reservoir pH conditions on dynamics of microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) processes using Pseudomonas putida was analysed numerically from the developed mathematical model for MEOR processes. Further, a new strategy to improve the MEOR performance has also been proposed. It is concluded from present study that by reversing the reservoir pH from highly acidic to low alkaline condition (pH 5-8), flow and mobility of displaced oil, displacement efficiency, and original oil in place (OOIP) recovered gets significantly enhanced, resulting from improved interfacial tension (IFT) reduction by biosurfactants. At pH 8, maximum of 26.1% of OOIP was recovered with higher displacement efficiency. The present study introduces a new strategy to increase the recovery efficiency of MEOR technique by characterizing the biosurfactants for IFTmin/IFTmaxvalues for different pH conditions and subsequently, reversing the reservoir pH conditions at which the IFTmin/IFTmaxvalue is minimum.
Petroleum Engineering Program, Department of Ocean Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology - Madras, Chennai 600036, India. Electronic address: sivasankarpetro@gmail.com.
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Sivasankar
Petroleum Engineering Program, Department of Ocean Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology - Madras, Chennai 600036, India. Electronic address: gskumar@iitm.ac.in.
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Suresh Kumar
D008962:Models, Theoretical; D061329:Oil and Gas Fields; D009821:Oils; D010578:Petroleum; D016958:Pseudomonas putida / Q000378:metabolism*; D013500:Surface Tension; D013501:Surface-Active Agents / Q000737:chemistry*
D009821:Oils; D010578:Petroleum; D013501:Surface-Active Agents
Biosurfactant; Charecterization; Microbial enhanced oil recovery; Modelling; Porous media