Targeted Delivery by Smart Capsules for Controlling Two-phase Flow in Porous Media

Abstract:

Understanding and controlling two-phase flow in porous media are of particular importance to the relevant industry applications, such as enhanced oil recovery, CO₂ sequestration, and groundwater remediation. We develop a variety of smart microcapsules that can deliver and release specific substances to the target location in the porous medium, and therefore change the fluid property or medium geometry at certain locations. In this talk, I will present two types of smart capsules for (a) delivering surfactant to the vicinity of oil-water interface and (b) delivering microgels to the high permeability region and therefore blocking the pore space there, respectively. We also show that flooding these two capsules into porous media effectively reduces the trapped oil and improves the homogeneity of the medium, respectively. Besides of its industrial applications, this technique also opens a new window to study the mechanism of two-phase flow in porous media.