Desenvolvimento de um método para obtenção de meios porosos cerâmicos triaxiais com permeabilidade adaptável por jateamento de aglutinante

Abstract

Among the types of oil reservoirs are those constituted by sandstone rocks, which represent 60% of the existing reservoirs. Some properties such as porosity and permeability are considered critical in understanding the flow of fluids inside these rocks, especially for implementations of advanced oil recovery technologies (Enhanced Oil Recovery - EOR), which aim to recover/extract the maximum amount of oil stored in these rocks reservoirs. However, the cost of obtaining samples of reservoir rocks for laboratory analysis that enable such technologies is high, and the tests commonly modify the original properties of the rocks, meaning that the experiments cannot be repeated using the same samples. The additive manufacturing (AM) by binder jetting process, appears as a promising alternative for obtaining porous media with properties similar to those of natural rocks, since it offers the possibility of use any type of particulate material, with a wide range of particle sizes and with mineralogical properties close to those of such rocks. In this sense, this work started from the premise that it is possible to obtain a permeability adjustment of porous ceramic media through the planning of its internal filling, with subsequent fabrication by AM. The proposed internal planning started from the generation of internal structures, for which an algorithm was developed that allowed obtaining and manipulating geometric, dimensional and spatial position of these structures, in order to make them operate as obstacles to the passage of fluids inside the environment. porous. To reproduce these planned porous media, formulations of binder liquids and triaxial ceramic powders were generated, which proved to be viable for processing by binder jetting. The results obtained showed the applicability of the method developed to obtain porous ceramic media with adjustment of permeability ranges, with values between 72.9 ± 12.2 mD and 542.1 ± 23.3 mD for the tested parameters, range of values that are similar to those commonly found in rocks from oil reservoirs. It was also noted that the connectivity property between pores was more expressive than the apparent porosity obtained individually by each porous medium, and interestingly, the degree of packing of the internal planned structures directly affected the connectivity between such pores. Additionally, this study brings the possibility of obtaining a fine adjustment of permeability through the manipulation of parameters such as sintering time (during the firing process), dimension and packing degree of the structures of the internal filling of the porous media.