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Amaury Alvarez

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4 records found

Journal article (2025) - Amaury C. Alvarez, Johannes Bruining, Dan Marchesin
Low-salinity waterflooding (LSWF) enhances oil recovery at low cost in carbonate reservoirs, but its effectiveness requires the precise control of injected water chemistry and interaction with reservoir minerals. This study specifically investigates carbonated low-salinity waterflooding (CLSWF), where dissolved CO2 modulates geochemical processes. This study develops an integrated transport model coupling geochemical surface complexation modeling (SCM) with multiphase compositional dynamics to quantify wettability alteration during CLSWF. The framework combines PHREEQC-based equilibrium calculations of the Total Bond Product (TBP)—a wettability indicator derived from oil–calcite ionic bridging—with Corey-type relative permeability interpolation, resolved via COMSOL Multiphysics. Core flooding simulations, compared with experimental data from calcite systems at 100∘C and 220, reveal that magnesium ([Mg2+]) and sulfate ([SO2−4]) concentrations modulate the TBP, reducing oil–rock adhesion under controlled low-salinity conditions. Parametric analysis demonstrates that acidic crude oils (TAN higher than 1mg KOH/g) exhibit TBP values approximately 2.5𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠 higher than those of sweet crudes, due to carboxylate–calcite bridging, while pH elevation (higher than 7.5) amplifies wettability shifts by promoting deprotonated -COO− interactions. The model further identifies synergistic effects between ([Mg2+]) (ranging from 50 to 200 mmol/kgw) and ([SO2−4]) (higher than 500 mmol/kgw), which reduce (Ca2+)-mediated oil adhesion through competitive mineral surface binding. By correlating TBP with fractional flow dynamics, this framework could support the optimization of injection strategies in carbonate reservoirs, suggesting that ion-specific adjustments are more effective than bulk salinity reduction. ...
Journal article (2024) - A. C. Alvarez, J. Bruining, D. Marchesin
Carbonated water flooding (CWI) increases oil production due to favorable dissolution effects and viscosity reduction. Accurate modeling of CWI performance requires a simulator with the ability to capture the true physics of such process. In this study, compositional modeling coupled with surface complexation modeling (SCM) are done, allowing a unified study of the influence in oil recovery of reduction of salt concentration in water. The compositional model consists of the conservation equations of total carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, chloride and decane. The coefficients of such equations are obtained from the equilibrium partition of chemical species that are soluble both in oleic and the aqueous phases. SCM is done by using the PHREEQC program, which determines concentration of the master species. Estimation of the wettability as a function of the Total Bound Product (TBP) that takes into account the concentration of the complexes in the aqueous, oleic phases and in the rock walls is performed. We solve analytically and numerically these equations in 1 - D in order to elucidate the effects of the injection of low salinity carbonated water into a reservoir containing oil equilibrated with high salinity carbonated water. ...
Journal article (2023) - A. C. Alvarez, J. Bruining, D. Marchesin
This paper is concerned with the study of the main wave interactions in a system of conservation laws in geochemical modeling. We study the modeling of the chemical complexes on the rock surface. The presence of stable surface complexes affects the relative permeability. We add terms representing surface complexes to the accumulation function in the model presented in [14]. This addition allows to take into account the interaction of ions with the rock surface in the modeling of the oil recovery by the injection of carbonated water. Compatibility hypotheses with the modeling are made on the coefficients of the system to obtain meaningful solutions. We developed a Riemann solver taking into account the complexity of the interactions and bifurcations of nonlinear waves. Such bifurcations occur at the inflection and resonance surfaces. We present the solution of a generalized eigenvalue problem in a (n+1)-dimensional case, which allows the construction of rarefaction curves. A method to find the discontinuous solutions is also presented. We find the solution path for some examples. ...
Journal article (2020) - Wanderson Lambert, Amaury Alvarez, Ismael Ledoino, Duilio Tadeu, Dan Marchesin, Johannes Bruining
We study systems of partial differential-algebraic equations (PDAEs) of first order. Classical solutions of the theory of hyperbolic partial differential equation such as discontinuities (shock and contact discontinuities), rarefactions and diffusive traveling waves are extended for variables living on a surface S, which is defined as solution of a set of algebraic equations. We propose here an alternative formulation to study numerically and theoretically the PDAEs by changing the algebraic conditions into partial differential equations with relaxation source terms (PDREs). The solution of such relaxed systems is proved to tend to the surface S, i.e., to satisfy the algebraic equations for long times. We formulate a unified numerical scheme for systems of PDAEs and PDREs. This scheme is naturally parallelizable and has faster convergence. We do not perform a rigorous analysis about the convergence or accuracy for the method, the evidence of its effectiveness is presented by means of simulations for physical and synthetical problems. ...