Bacterial profile modification (BPM), a form of tertiary oil recovery, diverts water from the water-flooded high-permeability zone into the oil-bearing low-permeability zone. During field use, exopolymer-producing bacteria plug the high-permeability zone only in the immediate vicinity of the injection point (the near-well bore region). For effective BPM the plug must penetrate far into the form...

A biocompatible microemulsion system comprising of isopropyl myristate (IPM) as oil, tween 80 as a non-ionic surfactant and isobuthanol as co-surfactant was studied experimentally at 298.15 K. The pseudo-ternary phase diagram for the microemulsion system has been delineated at different surfactant to co-surfactant mass ratio of 1:1, 2.4:1 and 4:1. Some physico-chemical properties such as densit...

Topological transitions in core-annular ow of oil and water are described. Drops of one liquid are suspended in the second liquid and transported through a pipeline under a pressure gradient. We examine the merging of an array of drops in this twouid ow. Larger drops are found to merge and the ow undergoes a topological transition to core-annular ow. In core-annular ow of two liquids, one liqui...

The relative wettability of oil and water on solid surfaces is generally governed by a complex competition of molecular interaction forces acting in such three-phase systems. Herein, we experimentally demonstrate how the adsorption of in nature abundant divalent Ca(2+) cations to solid-liquid interfaces induces a macroscopic wetting transition from finite contact angles (≈ 10°) with to near-zer...

We present a novel microfluidic approach for the generation of monodisperse oil droplets in water with ultra-low interfacial tensions. Using an oil-water-surfactant formulation under conditions close to the microemulsion phase transition, we actively controlled the surface tension at the liquid-liquid interface within the microfluidic device in order to produce monodisperse droplets. These drop...

High–pressure and high–temperature experiments were conducted to determine the stability field of phase Egg, AlSiO3OH, in the pressure range of 16.5–23.5 GPa and in the temperature range of 800–1500 °C. We found that phase Egg decomposes to δ–AlOOH + stishovite below ~ 1200 °C (16.5 GPa and 800 °C; 20.6 GPa and 1000 °C) and to Al–phase D + corundum + stishovite above ~ 1200 °C (21.8 GPa and 150...