New high-temperature stable dispersed particle gel for enhanced profile control in CCUS applications
2025-07-11
(Press-News.org)
A novel dispersed particle gel (DPG) suspension has been developed by researchers from Chengdu University of Technology and University of Alberta, offering enhanced profile control in high-temperature carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) applications. The study, published in Engineering, details the creation of a DPG suspension that exhibits significant improvements in thermal stability and plugging efficiency compared to traditional CO2-responsive gels.
CCUS is a crucial strategy for mitigating climate change by capturing CO2 from industrial sources and injecting it into geological formations such as saline aquifers and oil reservoirs. However, the effectiveness of CO2 injection can be compromised by early breakthrough and fingering through high-permeability channels in reservoirs. Profile control, which involves injecting plugging agents to block these channels, is a key method to enhance both oil recovery and CO2 storage efficiency. Traditional CO2-responsive gels, while effective at ambient temperatures, suffer from reversible swelling and thermal degradation at elevated temperatures, limiting their applicability in high-temperature CCUS operations.
To address these limitations, the researchers synthesized a double-network hydrogel composed of crosslinked polyacrylamide (PAAm) and sodium alginate (SA) networks. This hydrogel was then sheared in water to form a pre-prepared DPG suspension. The innovation lies in the modification of these gel particles using potassium methylsilanetriolate (PMS) and CO2 exposure, which results in significant and irreversible swelling of the particles. The modified DPG suspension, coded as PAAm/SA-PMS2/SA3-mDPG, demonstrated particle sizes over twice their original dimensions and maintained this size even after exposure to 100 °C for 24 hours.
Thermogravimetric analysis revealed that the modified DPG particles exhibited improved thermal stability, with a higher decomposition onset temperature and reduced mass loss compared to the unmodified particles. Core flooding experiments further validated the enhanced performance of the new DPG suspension, achieving a plugging efficiency of 95.3% in ultra-high permeability sandpacks, significantly higher than the 82.8% efficiency of the unmodified DPG suspension.
The study’s findings highlight the potential of the newly developed DPG suspension for effective profile control in high-temperature CCUS applications. The irreversible swelling and enhanced thermal stability of the modified gel particles make them a promising solution for improving the efficiency of CO2 injection and storage in challenging reservoir conditions. Future research may focus on optimizing the formulation and exploring the long-term performance of the DPG suspension in field-scale operations.
The paper “High-Temperature Stable Dispersed Particle Gel for Enhanced Profile Control in Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) Applications,” is authored by Lin Du, Yao-Yu Xiao, Zhi-Chao Jiang, Hongbo Zeng, Huazhou Li. Full text of the open access paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eng.2025.04.002. For more information about Engineering, visit the website at https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/engineering.
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[Press-News.org] New high-temperature stable dispersed particle gel for enhanced profile control in CCUS applications
