Study on Factors Influencing the Viscosity of Polyacrylamide Solution

Polyacrylamide (PAM) is an important polymer for oilfield flooding. The viscosity of PAM solution is very significant for polymer flooding to enhance oil recovery. The main factors which influence viscosity of PAM solution including polymer concentration, temperature, stirring rate, TDS and divalent cation ions were studied. The results showed that high stirring rate will reduce the viscosity of PAM solution; and the viscosity decreases gradually with temperature increasing; TDS and divalent cation ions also affect the viscosity of polymer solution greatly, the viscosity loss is more than 3% with the TDS increases by 1000 mg/L under the same concentration of divalent cation ions; the viscosity loss is around 20% with the concentration of divalent cation ions increase by 100 mg/L.