Work

Preparation and Performance Evaluation of Environmentally Friendly Foam Hydrogel Based on Polyvinyl Alcohol/Organic Titanium Crosslinking Agent

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Foam and hydrogel profile control are commonly utilized water-blocking and profile modification techniques in oil fields. This study integrates a foam system with a gel system, employing an organic titanium crosslinking agent to crosslink polyvinyl alcohol, thereby forming a gel system. Concurrently, a gas-evolving agent is incorporated into the system to induce in situ foaming, thereby creating an environmentally benign foam gel system. The fundamental constituents of this system comprise 2 wt% to 5 wt% polyvinyl alcohol, 2 wt% to 4 wt% crosslinker, and 0.3 wt% to 0.9 wt% gas-generating agent. By varying the amounts of each component, the strength grade, gelation time, and foaming volume of the foam gel can be effectively adjusted. The results of the temperature resistance performance evaluation indicate that within the temperature range of 80 °C to 130 °C, the gelation performance of the foam gel is stable and good. At 90 °C, the foam gel can remain stable for 340 days with minimal strength variation. The plugging experiments indicate that the formulated foam gel system exhibits superior injectability and can effectively seal the sand-filled tube model, achieving a blocking efficiency of up to 96.36%.

Source: Gels

DOI: 10.3390/gels11030181

Authors: Ru Ma, Gaoshen Su, Ya Nie, Huan Yang, Xiaorong Yu

Institution: Yangtze University

Language: English

Topic: Enhanced Oil Recovery Techniques

Subfield: Ocean Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Responsible consumption and production

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,534