1. Flow and Transport of Complex Fluids in Porous Media
Tara Mars temars@uh.edu
Jacinta Conrad, Ph. D., Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Cullen College of Engineering
Confocal Microscopy
Acknowledgement
Thanks goes out to Dr. Jacinta Conrad and Ryan
Poling-Skutvik for their help and support in
researching this project.
Bed Characterizations Two Phase Flow
1. Miscibility needed to be tested
2. Indexes tested
1. 100% Water
2. 50% Water 50% Glycerol
3. 10% Water 90% Glycerol
4. 100% Glycerol
3. Filled bed with index matched oil
4. Flowed Glycerol through packed beds
on microscope
• Fluorescently dyed oil of different indexes
were imaged to determine which n value
matched the glass beads
• Images taken with the confocal
microscope
• Determined that the oil dyed with nile red
and the glass particles had similar
indexes of refraction
• Light passes from one phase to
the other without reflection or
refraction
• This system can be used to
characterize beds for flow
experiments
• Images processed through ImageJ
• Binarized & Despeckled
• Similar porosity & pore throats 
different places in the bed can be
easily compared
Future Research
• Running these 3 phase fluids through packed beds and directly imaging the oil that is recovered.
• Directly measuring oil recovery on the microscale to complement bulk core flooding studies.
• n = 1.54 oil  chosen
• Videos of the capillaries filled with this oil
taken on microscope
• Videos processed through Matlab to
display:
• Porosity
• Chord length
• Minimum chord length
Ca =
𝜇𝑉
𝛾
1. 3.
4.
History of Oil Production
Why do we need to enhance oil recovery?
• Over 30% of oil can be left behind in the reservoir
after primary and secondary production.
• As the demand for oil increases, other methods
are needed to enhance oil recovery.
• Our method:
• Polymer flooding
• Nanoparticles
How do we enhance oil recovery?
Capillary number (Ca):
• Viscous force/surface tension
• Drives recovery (larger Ca = higher recovery)
• Particles reduce surface tension, which increases Ca
• Polymers increase the viscous force, which increases CaExxonmobile.com
Glass particle
Fluorescent fluid
Connected pore throats
Developed a model experimental
technique to directly image different
enhanced oil recovery mechanisms.
Oil recovery found to be
~86% which is
expected.
μ – dynamic viscosity
V − characteristic velocity
γ − interfacial tension