@Article{ee.2026.087821,
AUTHOR = {Jinsheng Zhao, Decong Li, Di Zhu, Xiaopeng Ma, Mengyuan Zhang, Yan Xin, Haihu Liu},
TITLE = {Advances in CO<sub>2</sub> Foam for Profile Control, Enhanced Oil Recovery, and Carbon Storage in Low-Permeability and Tight Oil Reservoirs},
JOURNAL = {Energy Engineering},
VOLUME = {},
YEAR = {},
NUMBER = {},
PAGES = {{pages}},
URL = {http://www.techscience.com/energy/online/detail/28344},
ISSN = {1546-0118},
ABSTRACT = {Low-permeability and tight oil reservoirs are characterized by small pore-throat sizes and strong heterogeneity. During the process of conventional CO<sub>2</sub> flooding, viscous fingering, gravity override, and gas channeling through preferential flow paths are prone to occur, resulting in insufficient sweep efficiency, low CO<sub>2</sub> utilization, and reduced storage efficiency. CO<sub>2</sub> foam can divide the continuous CO<sub>2</sub> 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 CO<sub>2</sub> storage. Focusing on the requirements of CO<sub>2</sub> 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 CO<sub>2</sub> 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 CO<sub>2</sub> 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 CO<sub>2</sub> foam improves microscopic displacement efficiency are summarized from the perspectives of interfacial tension regulation, CO<sub>2</sub> mass transfer, oil swelling and viscosity reduction, and wettability alteration. Regarding CO<sub>2</sub> storage, this paper further discusses the influence of foam on CO<sub>2</sub> flow pathways, spatial distribution, and the contributions of different trapping mechanisms, and summarizes the roles of experimental evaluation and numerical simulation in identifying CO<sub>2</sub> storage mechanisms. However, under complex reservoir conditions, CO<sub>2</sub> 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 <i>in situ</i> characterization, long-term storage numerical simulation, and synergistic optimization of EOR and storage, thereby providing theoretical support for the field application of CO<sub>2</sub> foam flooding and CCUS-EOR in low-permeability and tight oil reservoirs.},
DOI = {10.32604/ee.2026.087821}
}