Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-9-2024

Abstract

Early water breakthrough with high water cut through highly conductive thief zones is a prevalent problem in many water-flooded oil reservoirs. Smart polymers that are sensitive to temperature changes, also known as thermo-responsive polymers, e.g., polyethylene glycol (PEG) have great advantages over conventional polymers that can be exploited to solve the problem of conductive thief zones. Thus, this study aims at designing and synthesizing a thermo-responsive polymer using Gamma Ray Induced radiation with good tolerance against high temperature, and high salinity reservoir conditions with feasible and economic synthesis procedure for application in Egyptian oil reservoirs. That is a combined use of polyacrylamide and/or polymethacrylamide together with the selected thermo-responsive polymer (PEG) (3000 ppm polymer concentration) could achieve a viscosity of about 2.8 cp at 90°C under 200,000 ppm salinity conditions. The thermo-gravimetric analysis as well as the viscosity temperature profiles, confirmed that the polymer composite can maintain its thermal stability up to 105°C. The FT-IR spectrum confirmed that the polymer components were well-blended with each other and produced a homogeneous polymer with enhanced characteristics.

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