Characterization of foam flowing in a granular medium in the presence of oil by small angle neutron scattering

Abstract

We present an experimental study of foam-flow characterization inside a 3D granular medium packed in a cell. The foam is formed by coinjecting a surfactant solution and gas inside a cell filled with silica grains. The porous medium is initially saturated with dodecane and water before the gas–surfactant coinjection. To simplify the interpretation of the measurements, a contrast matching methodology has been applied in order to obtain a two phase system regarding the scattering length density values. The combination of transmission and incoherent scattering allows us to estimate the volume fractions of each phase, whereas the coherent scattering is used to estimate the surface to volume ratio S/V related to water–oil and water–gas interfaces. Considering the evolution of S/V ratio, volume fractions and pressure difference, we infer some mechanisms of foam generation and transportation as well as oil removal.