For this Company Spotlight, we interviewed Interface Fluidics’ Co-founder and CEO, Stuart Kinnear, about how the company is facilitating a net zero energy industry and the conservation of finite resources with a fluid testing process that is cost effective, rapid, and repeatable – and can be completed at higher pressures and temperatures. By providing more extensive and accurate data, Interface Fluidics is helping to reduce emissions and increase efficiencies while maintaining visual insights at the microscopic level. The innovative, proprietary technology created by Interface Fluidics provides results that can increase ROI, reduce chemical costs, and take the guesswork out of operations. For more information on Interface Fluidics, please visit interfacefluidics.com.

Background: After working for an oil and gas operator for several years, Stuart co-founded Interface Fluidics in 2015 to help operators improve critical inefficiencies in their operations that result from working with incomplete knowledge sets. His co-founders, Tom de Haas and David Sinton, are thought leaders in utilizing microfluidics for energy applications. Microfluidics is mostly known for its uses in the biomedical industry as it enables various types of tests to be performed virtually anywhere rather than in a laboratory (e.g. pregnancy, diabetes, and COVID testing). Interface Fluidics is taking a similar approach in its mission to deploy microfluidics to help energy companies better understand flow characteristics of a reservoir and other types of complex flow systems, such as oil blending in refineries.

Value Proposition: The two types of tests that are widely used in the energy industry to test how different fluid compositions would react in specific reservoirs (whether for completion or production operations) are benchtop lab testing and core sample testing, both of which have their pros and cons. Interface Fluidics’ solution provides the following improvements on these traditional testing methods:

Highly Accurate: Ability to replicate the high pressure and high temperature environments of a reservoir without the need to collect a core sample.
Rapid Results: Test results are made available in days rather than months, enabling more timely information to be used in critical decision making.
Repeatable Tests: Multiple tests can be performed rather than only once with core samples, facilitating the use of sensitivity testing to identify the optimal chemical/fluid composition.
Portable: Technology is able to fit in a unit the size of a carry-on luggage bag, allowing tests to be performed virtually anywhere.
Cost Effective: Every Interface Fluidics customer has economically benefited by using its solution due to increased revenue and/or decreased costs.

Closing Thoughts: Today, Interface Fluidics is largely focused on deploying its technology within the oil and gas industry (from the wellhead to refineries). We look forward to following Interface Fluidics, as the company continues to help oil and gas operators better understand reservoir dynamics as well as assist carbon capture, utilization, and storage companies gain more insights into the behavior of CO2 in various environments.

Company Spotlights

December 2021