www.owlnet.rice.edu/~gjh/Consortium/ Houston, TX

Inves tor Newslet terAnnual Newsletter for the Rice University Consortium For Processes in Porous Media

We are please to kick off the inaugural newsletter that highlights some of our activities from this past year. Our team of faculty, staff scientists, and students have made a number of advancements understanding processes in porous media. In particular, projects this year have focused on:

✦Chemical enhanced oil recovery - in particular surfactant stabilized foam

✦Foam mobility control ✦Low interfacial tension foam✦Wettability Alteration✦Adsorption and surfactant

retention onto different mineral surfaces

✦The use of sacrificial agents✦Visualization of transport

processes at the pore-scale✦Developing models for 1-D

and 2-D foam transport✦Molecular modeling of

surfactant interfacial behavior✦Nanotechnology for porous

media processes

Research Highlight:Biswal and Hiraski awarded STS-AICHE Best Fundamental Paper for visualizing bubble flow in individual pores

This past year, the South Texas Section of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers awarded their annual best fundamental paper award for their work in visualizing the flow and deformation of individual bubbles through a single pore: “Neighbor-induced bubble pinch-off: novel mechanisms of in situ foam generation in microfluidic channels" published in Soft Matter, 2013, 9, 10971 by Rachel Liontas, Kun Ma, George J. Hirasaki, and Sibani Lisa Biswal Watch the video at http://youtu.be/-TJocLRaGZU

Save the Date:19th Annual Consortium Meeting will take place Wednesday April 22, 2015 at 8am in Duncan Hall at Rice University

MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTORThe goal of this consortium is to engaged in collaborative research to advance the fundamental understanding of porous media processes. Our core research areas include the study of surfactant and foam Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) processes, asphaltene deposition, NMR studies of core samples, core analysis, methane gas hydrates and carbon capture and storage. As the Director of this research consortium, I thank you for your support of our research and welcome you to potential opportunities for collaboration and participation.

RICE UNIVERSITY CONSORTIUM FOR PROCESSES IN POROUS MEDIA SPRING 2015

- George Hirasaki

www.owlnet.rice.edu/~gjh/Consortium/ Houston, TX

News

Flood Damage

The Hirasaki laboratory was flood this past August from broken plumbing. This was a mixed blessing. We had to work in temporary space for 6 months but we were able to replace everything that was damaged damaged from the water. This includes replacing the two 20 year old NMR spectrometer with a new Oxford 2 MHz spectrometer with probes that can measure short relaxation times for oil and gas shale. We are negotiating to have an experienced NMR research scientist join us as well as a young visiting professor from China. We expect to showcase many of the new core flooding apparatus during a lab tour at the annual meeting.

Welcome new staff

We added two new Ph.D. students to join projects related to the consortium projects. Three postdocs and two visiting professors have also recently joined on our group.

Good-bye!We had four students graduate this

past year:✦ Dr. Charles Conn and Dr. Aparna

Raju Sagi joined Shell Westhollow Technology Center in Houston, TX.

✦ Dr. Leyu Cui joined Total in Pau, France.

✦ Hadi Shams Jazayi joined Clariant Oil Services in Houston, TX.

New Consortium!This past year, our newest faculty

member, Francisco Vargas, established a Consortium on Petroleum Thermodynamics and Flow Assurance. www.vargaslab.org/ptfac/

Publications✦ Cui, L., Puerto, M., López-Salinas, J. L., Biswal, S. L., & Hirasaki, G. J. (2014). Improved Methylene Blue Two-Phase Titration Method for Determining Cationic Surfactant Concentration in High-Salinity Brine. Analytical Chemistry, 86(22), 11055-11061.✦ Conn, C. A., Ma, K., Hirasaki, G. J., & Biswal, S. L. (2014). Visualizing oil displacement with foam in a microfluidic device with permeability contrast. Lab on a Chip, 14(20), 3968-3977.✦ ShamsiJazeyi, H., Verduzco, R., & Hirasaki, G. J. (2014). Reducing adsorption of anionic surfactant for enhanced oil recovery: Part I. Competitive adsorption mechanism. Colloids asnd Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 453, 162-167.✦ Ma, K., Farajzadeh, R., Lopez-Salinas, J. L., Miller, C. A., Biswal, S. L., & Hirasaki, G. J. (2014). Non-uniqueness, Numerical Artifacts, and Parameter Sensitivity in Simulating Steady-State and Transient Foam Flow Through Porous Media. Transport in porous media, 102(3), 325-348.✦ Chen, Yunshen, et al. "Switchable Nonionic to Cationic Ethoxylated Amine Surfactants for CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery in High-Temperature, High-Salinity Carbonate Reservoirs." SPE Journal 19.02 (2014): 249-259.✦ Kini, G. C., Yu, J., Wang, L., Kan, A. T., Biswal, S. L., Tour, J. M., ... & Wong, M. S. (2014). Salt-and temperature-stable quantum dot nanoparticles for porous media flow. Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 443, 492-500.

PDF copies of research articles are available upon request

FACULTY ✦George Hirasaki : Director

✦Ed Billups

✦Lisa Biswal

✦Walter Chapman

✦Clarence Miller

✦ James Tour

✦Francisco Vargas

✦Rafael Verduzco

✦Scott Wellington

✦Michael Wong

STAFF✦Maura Puerto

✦Annie Wang

✦ Indra Mukherjee

✦Suvasree Mukherjee

✦Bin Huang

✦Cheng Fu

✦Zhen Wang

Contact Us:Porous Media Consortium6100 Main St. MS 362 Houston, TX 77005

Ph: 713-348-5416 gjh@rice.edu

RICE UNIVERSITY CONSORTIUM FOR PROCESSES IN POROUS MEDIA SPRING 2015