Open Access

REVIEW

Advances in CO₂ Foam for Profile Control, Enhanced Oil Recovery, and Carbon Storage in Low-Permeability and Tight Oil Reservoirs

Jinsheng Zhao^1,2, Decong Li¹, Di Zhu^1,*, Xiaopeng Ma¹, Mengyuan Zhang², Yan Xin², Haihu Liu³
1 School of Petroleum Engineering, Xi’an Petroleum University, Xi’an, China
2 Research Institute of Carbon Neutrality Future Technology, Xi’an Petroleum University, Xi’an, China
3 School of Energy and Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, 28 West Xianning Road, Xi’an, China
* Corresponding Author: Di Zhu. Email:
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Recent Advances in Sustainable and Intelligent Petroleum Engineering)

Energy Engineering https://doi.org/10.32604/ee.2026.087821

Received 23 June 2026; Accepted 07 September 2026; Published online 17 September 2026

Abstract

Low-permeability and tight oil reservoirs are characterized by small pore-throat sizes and strong heterogeneity. During the process of conventional CO₂ flooding, viscous fingering, gravity override, and gas channeling through preferential flow paths are prone to occur, resulting in insufficient sweep efficiency, low CO₂ utilization, and reduced storage efficiency. CO₂ foam can divide the continuous CO₂ gas phase into numerous discrete bubbles, thereby increasing the apparent gas viscosity and reducing the effective gas mobility. Therefore, it has great application potential in profile control, gas-channeling mitigation, enhanced oil recovery (EOR), and geological CO₂ storage. Focusing on the requirements of CO₂ foam flooding and the synergistic development of carbon capture, utilization, and storage-enhanced oil recovery (CCUS-EOR) in low-permeability and tight oil reservoirs, this paper systematically reviews the physicochemical fundamentals, static and dynamic performance evaluation methods, and commonly used foaming systems of CO₂ foam. Particular attention is paid to the foam-stabilizing characteristics and reservoir applicability of surfactant foams, nanoparticle-surfactant composite foams, and related systems. On this basis, the mechanisms of CO₂ foam mobility control and gas-channeling mitigation in porous media are analyzed, and the processes by which foam expands sweep volume through gas-phase division, pore-throat blockage, and selective plugging are clarified. Meanwhile, the main mechanisms by which CO₂ foam improves microscopic displacement efficiency are summarized from the perspectives of interfacial tension regulation, CO₂ mass transfer, oil swelling and viscosity reduction, and wettability alteration. Regarding CO₂ storage, this paper further discusses the influence of foam on CO₂ flow pathways, spatial distribution, and the contributions of different trapping mechanisms, and summarizes the roles of experimental evaluation and numerical simulation in identifying CO₂ storage mechanisms. However, under complex reservoir conditions, CO₂ foam still faces challenges such as insufficient long-term stability, limited deep propagation capacity, difficulty in quantitatively distinguishing the contributions of EOR and storage, and inadequate field-scale evaluation. Future research should focus on the development of temperature- and salinity-resistant composite foam systems, multiscale in situ characterization, long-term storage numerical simulation, and synergistic optimization of EOR and storage, thereby providing theoretical support for the field application of CO₂ foam flooding and CCUS-EOR in low-permeability and tight oil reservoirs.

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Keywords

CO₂ foam; low-permeability and tight oil reservoirs; mobility control; enhanced oil recovery; CO₂ storage

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