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The micropore-throat structure is a controlling factor on the capacity of storage and seepage for the tight sandstone reservoirs. Therefore, quantitatively analyzing the pore-throat structure is crucial for realizing the oil accumulated in the tight reservoirs. To study the micropore-throat, a battery of experiments such as casting thin sections, scanning electron microscopy, high-pressure mercury injection, and the petrophysical characteristics of reservoirs were conducted on ten samples gathered in the Late Triassic Chang 63 sublayer in the Southeast Ordos Basin, China. The main pore types of the samples are intergranular pores, feldspar dissolved pores, and intergranular dissolved pores. Meanwhile, the pore-throat structure of each sample was identified as large pores, medium pores, and small pores by combining the result of HPMI with fractal theory. The corresponding mean values of the fractal dimension D for large, medium, and small pores are 2.83, 2.69, and 2.31, respectively, indicating that the complex structure and strong heterogeneity were presented in the large pores according to the maximum fractal dimension. In addition, the fractal dimension of the medium pores ( D P − 2 ) has a negative correlation with porosity, permeability, median pore-throat radius, maximum mercury saturation, mercury withdrawal efficiency, displacement pressure, and content of quartz, while a positive correlation with feldspar content, sorting coefficient, and coefficient of variation. Thus, the reservoir space and seepage capacity of all samples in this study were determined by the size, complexity, and distribution of the medium pores. Furthermore, the content of quartz contributes to the storage of the reservoir and the homogeneity of the pore-throat structure, thereby the storage capacity improves with the increase of quartz content. Feldspar dissolution pores are developed widely in the study area, leading to various pores with diverse types, sizes, complex structures, and large fractal dimensions. Although the storage capacity of tight sandstone reservoirs was enhanced with increasing feldspar content, the pore-throat structure complexity was also stronger, resulting in the reduction seepage capacity of fluid.

Unconventional reservoir plays an increasingly important role in the world energy system, but its recovery is always quite low. Therefore, the economic and effective enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technology is urgently required. Moreover, with the aggravation of greenhouse effect, carbon neutrality has become the human consensus. How to sequestrate CO2 more economically and effectively has aroused wide concerns. Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS)-EOR is a win-win technology, which can not only enhance oil recovery but also increase CO2 sequestration efficiency. However, current CCUS-EOR technologies usually face serious gas channeling which finally result in the poor performance on both EOR and CCUS. This study introduced CO2 electrochemical conversion into CCUS-EOR, which successively combines CO2 electrochemical reduction and crude oil electrocatalytic cracking both achieves EOR and CCUS. In this study, multiscale experiments were conducted to study the effect and mechanism of CO2 electrochemical reduction for CCUS-EOR. Firstly, the catalyst and catalytic electrode were synthetized and then were characterized by using scanning electron microscope (SEM) & energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Then, electrolysis experiment & liquid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) experiments were implemented to study the mechanism of CO2 electrochemical reduction. And electrolysis experiment & gas chromatography (GC) & viscosity & density experiments were used to investigate the mechanism of crude oil electrocatalytic cracking. Finally, contact angle and coreflooding experiments were respectively conducted to study the effect of the proposed technology on wettability and CCUS-EOR. SEM & EDS & XPS results confirmed that the high pure SnO2 nanoparticles with the hierarchical, porous structure, and the large surface area were synthetized. Electrolysis & 1H NMR experiment showed that CO2 has converted into formate with the catalysis of SnO2 nanoparticles. Electrolysis & GC & Density & Viscosity experiments indicated that the crude oil was electrocatalytically cracked into the light components ( This paper introduced CO2 electrochemical conversion into CCUS-EOR, which successfully combines CO2 electrochemical reduction and crude oil electrocatalytic cracking into one technology. It shows great potential on CCUS-EOR and more studies are required to reveal its in-depth mechanisms.