A novel strengthened dispersed particle gel for enhanced oil recovery application

A novel strengthened dispersed particle gel (SDPG) was proposed and investigated to improve high-temperature and high-salinity stability of foam, which uses silica nanoparticles as reinforcing material to support the inner framework of particle gel. In this paper, SDPG was successfully prepared and applied to a new three-phase foam system (STPFS). Indoor experiments were conducted to evaluate the salt tolerance, thermal tolerance, plugging capacity and enhanced oil recovery capacity of the STPFS. It proved that silica nanoparticles could improve the high-temperature and high-salinity stability of the gel particles effectively. Consequently, the new three-phase foam system (STPFS) exhibited superior salt and temperature resistance, with a salinity of 80,000 mg/L of Na+, 15,000 mg/L of Ca2+ and Mg2+ and temperature tolerance of 110 °C. In addition, core-flooding test indicated the STPFS possessed better plugging capacity with a resistance factor of 310 and better enhanced oil recovery capacity with the oil recovery increment of 26.79% under high temperature (110 °C) and high salt environment (212,633.8 mg/L).