Synergism of polyvinyl alcohol fiber to hydrogel for profile modification

Abstract Water production is getting worse along with the continuous water injection in the reservoir with fracture, but common hydrogels cannot be successfully applied for water shutoff due to its poor resident ability in fracture. In this work, an interpenetrating network hydrogel has been developed innovatively by polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fiber and common polyacrylamide (PAM) hydrogel. Plugging ability, long-term thermal stability and the interaction between PVA fiber and hydrogel were detailedly studied. Results show that PVA fiber is beneficial to the stability of the PAM hydrogel, and the syneresis rate can be decreased from 30% to 3% on the 120 th day. PVA fiber accelerates the hydrogel gelation, and the high concentration of fiber leads to good hydrogel strength. PVA fiber increases the amount of the bound water in hydrogel, leading the hydrophilcity increase of hydrogel. An interpenetrating network is formed on the micrometer level, resulting from the three-group crosslinking among polymer, cross-linker and fiber. Compared with common PAM hydrogel, the interpenetrating network hydrogel has better water shutoff effect and EOR performance. Core flow experiment and micromodel test show that the interpenetrating network hydrogel forms an effective bridge in fracture, and it is hard to be moved due to the water washing. The introduction of fiber to hydrogel is an innovative research, which not only improves the water shutoff effect of hydrogel in fracture, but also provides reference to increase the performance of drilling fluid, fracturing solution and EOR polymer utilized in petroleum engineering.