Experimental Investigation of Thermal Marangoni Effect on Bypassed Oil Recovery

In this paper, the effect of the InterFacial Tension (IFT) gradient caused by the temperature changes (Benard-Marangoni phenomenon), as a new EOR method has been investigated. For a proper understanding and visualizing the mechanism, glass micromodels were used. Carbon dioxide and methane were injected into n-decane saturated micromodel. The gas injection was conducted in different pressure and temperature. The cold gas injection was compared with isotherm gas injection as the zero level of Marangoni flow. The presented results show the significant impact of thermal Marangoni convection on the recovery of bypassed oil and introduced Benard-Marangoni convection as an important mechanism of oil recovery especially in low-pressure reservoirs.