A novel surfactant-imbibition DNAPL remediation technology with horizontal extraction wells
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69631/241eb066Keywords:
Surfactant imbibition, Horizontal extraction wells, DNAPL, Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids, In-situ remediation, Modeling and simulationAbstract
This study investigates the feasibility of in-situ surfactant-imbibition Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids (DNAPL) remediation methods, where the surfactant solution is drawn into the contaminated site from the top vertical wells, which is driven by active extraction of formation fluids from the bottom horizontal wells. The fundamental mechanism of this novel technology is analyzed by using a dimensionless group (F) associated with capillary forces, combined with sweep efficiency. By matching the pattern of DNAPL plume leakage and spreading and analyzing the remediation efficiency in various design and optimization scenarios, this two-dimensional simulation study shows that the new technology can achieve a cumulative oil recovery of 36–37% more than simple water imbibition methods for 10 m horizontal well spacing. This increases to 52–53% more if the spacing can be adjusted down to 3–5 m. This improvement over the conventional water imbibition (that recovers a negligible amount of DNAPLs) results from the fact that the system configuration and design successfully create a sufficient pressure gradient for the surfactant solution to lower the level of capillary trapping and thus mobilize oil blobs, also generating contact areas large enough laterally to sweep the contaminants. This study represents the first step toward the use of active horizontal extraction wells for in-situ DNAPL remediation with surfactant imbibition, prior to testing the injection of gas-surfactant mixtures.
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