Smart Polymer Gel Produced by Iranian Researchers to Prevent Combination of Saltwater with Oil

According to the public relations department of Vice-Presidency for Science and Technology, Salman Ghorbanzadeh, the managing director of a knowledge-based company said that their company has focused its activity on producing a smart polymer gel to be used in the oil extraction industry.

“This gel helps prevent water from mixing with oil during the extraction process. The water that exists in oil well is usually salty and this will cause problems,” the researcher said.

He also said that in order to separate the saltwater from the oil, polymer gel is injected into the oil well. “The gel helps in a way that the oil will pass through it, but it does not allow water to cross through it, and it is kept underground,” he asserted.

“This polymer gel is produced in this company according to the environmental conditions and climatic condition in the country,” Ghorbanzadeh also noted.

Referring to the production process of the smart product in the oil industry, Ghorbanzadeh said that in production of polymer gel, the condition of the well is evaluated first, and then the polymer gel is designed and produced according to the oil well conditions. This is due to the fact that each well has its own features and the water around each well is different from the water around other wells, and for this reason it needs a suitable polymer gel.”

The managing director of the knowledge-based firm further emphasized that the Iranian product is one-third of the price of the foreign variants. “For that reason, the use of Iran's smart polymer gel is highly economical and saves the country a lot of money by meeting the domestic needs and preventing its imports.”

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