Modeling of dissolving of nano-core-shell particles in two phase viscosity prediction during polymer flooding

Core-shell particle has been found many applications in different industries. Hydrophilic nano and micro particles covered with a nano-layer of hydrophobic polymeric materials can be used in many industries including enhanced oil recovery methods. The main purpose of this paper is modelling and simulation of dissolution of core and shell layer in two phase flow of immiscible fluids. In particular, the governing equations of the process are obtained and numerically solved using finite difference scheme. The coating dissolution is considered as diffusion in a spherical coordinate followed by polymer chain disentanglement through a diffusion boundary layer. Moreover, a swellable-chain disentanglement model is considered for inside polymer dissolution into the water phase in which the glassy polymer starts swelling due to water penetration and simultaneously changes from the glassy to the rubbery state. Defining proper dimensionless parameters and fixing the moving boundary conditions, the governing equations are discretized using fully implicit scheme and solved with Broyden method. The numerical results show that how the polymer is dissolving during the polymer flooding. By measuring the viscosity of the polymer solution with respect to the polymer concentration in the laboratory, we compute the viscosity increasing of the water phase during the polymer flooding versus time

Keywords:

Core-shell particle , Viscosity prediction , Modeling , Simulation , in-vitro