The use of RFID technology to measure the compositions of diethyl ether-oil-brine mixtures in enhanced imbibition experiments

Abstract

Recent developments in Radio Frequency (800 MHz–1000 MHz) Identification (RFID) devices suggest that it is possible to use them for wireless laboratory measurements of the dielectric coefficients (or compositions) of fluid mixtures with possible spin-off for their use in the petroleum engineering practice. The advantage of RFID devices is their small size (0.095×0.008×0.001 m3), the developments to make them increasingly smaller and that they do not require the use of leak prone connecting cables. RFID measures the response of a sample volume of interest irradiated by a radio frequency electromagnetic (EM) wave. The response can be expressed in terms of various response functions, e.g. two scattering functions (S11 and S21) or the minimum irradiated power (Pmin). The response functions can be measured using a state-of-the-art RFID device (CISC RFID Xplorer-200), which operates in the range between 800 and 1000 MHz. The effect of the dielectric coefficient on the RFID response was tested by placing the RFID tag in different media with various dielectric coefficients ε ranging from 1 to 80. The overall purpose is to develop a work-flow to relate the response functions obtained with RFID technology to the dielectric coefficient and thus the composition of fluid mixtures in which an RFID tag can be immersed. An application is to measure fluid compositions during a spontaneous imbibition experiment in an Amott-cell. As an intermediate step we measure the composition dependence of the partial molar volume of diethyl ether (DEE) in brine and the partial molar volume of DEE in oil by using an Anton Paar density meter. The relation between the dielectric coefficients and the volume fraction can be obtained with the Böttcher mixing rule. The DEE volume fraction range of interest is 0–8% volume fraction in the aqueous solution whereas DEE volume fraction range of interest is 0–100% volume fraction in oleic solutions. For better understanding of the measurement results, we used COMSOL™ simulations, which show that the response functions depend on the dielectric coefficient in a vessel of appropriate dimensions filled with a fluid of choice. The measurements show that the minimum power at the tag position Pmin is the preferred response function and that the sensitivity of Pmin was highest at 915 and 868 MHz for aqueous (8.547×10−6) and oleic (1.905×10−4) solutions respectively. The measurement error is of the same order of magnitude as the errors mentioned above (Hon, 1989) ensuing from evaporation of DEE during the preparation of the calibration fluids or the approximate nature of the Böttcher mixing rule. We conclude that it is possible to use RFID technology for contact-less measurements of the compositions of fluids in imbibition experiments.