Formulation of a General Multiphase, Multicomponent Chemical Flood Model

A general multiphase, multicomponent chemical flood model has been formulated. The set of mass conservation laws for each component in an isothermal system is closed by assuming local thermodynamic (phase) equilibrium, Darcy's law for multiphase flow through porous media, and Fick's law of diffusion. For the special case of binary, two-phase flow of nonmixing incompressible fluids, the equations reduce to those of Buckley and Leverett. The Buckley-Leverett equations also may be obtained for significant fractions of both components in the phases if the two phases are sufficiently incompressible. To illustrate the usefulness of the approach, ã simple chemical flood model for a ternary, two-phase system is obtained which can be applied to surfactant flooding, polymer flooding, caustic flooding, etc.