Effect of Interface Structure and Behavior on the Fluid Flow Characteristics and Phase Interaction in the Petroleum Industry: State of the Art Review and Outlook

As the global oil market continues to tighten, there is an increasing focus on enhancing oil recovery. However, enhanced oil recovery technologies require the addition of chemical components such as surfactants, alkalis, and polymers to the oil reservoir. These chemical components change the interface structure and affect fluid flow characteristics and phase interactions through adsorption and other behaviors, thus affecting the production efficiency and energy consumption of oil recovery, gathering, processing, and transportation. Particularly, a stable interface is formed during oil recovery that can sharply increase the difficulty of phase separation during oil gathering and processing, thereby considerably decreasing the separation efficiency. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the effect of the interface structure and behavior on fluid flow characteristics and phase interactions for the advancement of the petroleum industry. Herein, the application and regulation of interfaces in the petroleum industry for fluid flow characteristics and phase interactions are reviewed, approaches for characterizing interface characteristics are critically analyzed and discussed, mechanisms of various factors influencing interface formation and stability through phase interactions are investigated, and methods of interface inhibition and destruction are summarized. Moreover, the latest techniques for applied interface formation in the petroleum industry are discussed, and the challenges and research prospects related to interfaces are summarized, providing references for enriching theoretical research in the field of interfaces within the petroleum industry and efficiently optimizing the production and operation of the petroleum industry.