International Journal of Research Publication and Reviews

Journal of Engineering Research

In recent studies, there has been an increasing focus on Nanoparticles Enhanced Oil Recovery (NPEOR). NPEOR is a method that was initially developed to improve microscopic and macroscopic displacement efficiency. In some recent applications NP have been assisted the conventional EOR methods such as a polymer, surfactant, and Co2 flooding, with the purpose of increasing the oil recovery. In this literature, the abilities to use NP in EOR are investigated. The function of different types of NP, different types of Dispersing agents, availability of nanomaterials in the lab, the effect of nanoparticles to change the properties, future challenges and concerns about the NP, are reviewed. However, the stability of suspensions of NP is still the most barrier to use NP in EOR. Upcoming studies are necessary to focus on the outcome of the appropriate techniques of NP to improve their stability under the worst conditions of reservoirs and investigate new types of nanoparticles.

Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 2019

The major challenges facing oil production during/after secondary recovery include oil entrapment by water and high water mobility. Hence, currently, Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) is considered a key solution for increasing oil production upon reaching the tertiary production phase. Unfortunately, EOR still has its drawbacks including the degradation of the chemicals (polymers and surfactants) used under reservoir conditions, large required volumes of chemicals, and their high cost. Nanotechnology is an emerging technology that has profoundly changed the course of different applications in various fields. In petroleum engineering, this modification can be attributed to the nanomaterials' unique properties including high surfaceto-volume ratio, wettability control, and interfacial tension reduction. To this end, the use of nanomaterials to enhance oil recovery is a very attractive, yet challenging task. This mini-review focuses on the recent efforts to explore the effects of various nanomaterial additives on the EOR process as well as the proposed mechanisms.

International journal of petroleum and petrochemical engineering, 2018

Oil and gas companies are racing towards increasing production in their fields. As the well's first stage of production through natural flow is completed, much of the effort is focused towards improved oil recovery. This is the application of diversified techniques with the purpose of improving the recovery factor of hydrocarbons. As varied techniques are readily available, we employ a novel method towards enhance oil recovery by utilizing nanoparticle materials that can complement current techniques used in the field. The use of nanoparticle material homogenously mixed with surfactants alters the properties of hydrocarbons sweeping from pore throats of the reservoir. This mechanism greatly affects interfacial tension, wettability through the contact angle and the capillary pressure of hydrocarbons. Any rise in the recovery can obviously increase production rates, recover additional reserves and ultimately substantial economic gains. This research demonstrated that employing nanoparticles to complement EOR operation can be a promising method to be further studied and developed and later introduced to the oil industry.

Applied Nanoscience, 2014

This paper presents systematic studies of hydrophilic metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) dispersed in brine intended to reveal their potential to enhance oil recovery (EOR) in various rock wettability systems. The stability in suspension (nanofluid) of the NPs has been identified as a key factor related to their use as an EOR agent. Experimental techniques have been developed for nanofluid stability using three coupled methods: direct visual observation, surface conductivity and particle size measurements. The use of a dispersant has been investigated and has been shown to successfully improve metal oxide nanofluid stability as a function of its concentration. The dispersant alters the nanofluid properties, i.e. surface conductivity, pH and particle size distribution. A twophase coreflood experiment was conducted by injecting the stable nanofluids as a tertiary process (nano-EOR) through core plugs with various wettabilities ranging from waterwet to oil-wet. The combination of metal oxide nanofluid and dispersant improved the oil recovery to a greater extent than either silica-based nanofluid or dispersant alone in all wettability systems. The contact angle, interfacial tension (IFT) and effluent were also measured. It was observed that metal oxide-based nanofluids altered the quartz plates to become more water-wet, and the results are consistent with those of the coreflood experiment. The particle adsorption during the transport process was identified from effluent analysis. The presence of NPs and dispersant reduced the IFT, but its reduction is sufficient to yield significant additional oil recovery. Hence, wettability alteration plays a dominant role in the oil displacement mechanism using nano-EOR.

Journal of Science and Technology, 2014

Petroleum industry has been changed by the introduction of the nanotechnology. Nanotechnology has been tried in exploration. Drilling, production, and finally in enhanced oil recovery. For EOR, nanomaterials are considered an additive to the fluid used to displace the residual oil from the reservoir, which changes the characteristics of these solutions. These nano solutions have unique properties for a wide range of applications in oil field industry. There are several approaches for preparations of the nanomaterials; namely chemical and mechanical methods. Of course there a big difference between both of them and one can detect these variations by measuring its characterization and properties. From these methods, SEM, TEM, and EDX. The size and shape of the powder particles normally examined by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) while their microanalysis are normally measured energy dispersive system (EDX). The initial stage used to investigate the performance of the nano materials for improving the oil recovery is normally done by displacing the crude oil in a flooding system and compare the final recovery factor to that of other EOR techniques such as water flooding or polymer flooding. The second step is to try to explain and interpret the results. This work offers an extensive literature review for assessing the applications of nano materials for improving oil recovery and investigating the current recovery problems, and then evaluating the potential technical and economic benefits that nanomaterials could provide to the reservoir engineering. Several nano materials are addressed and discussed. Moreover, it investigates the effect of nano materials on the relative permeability, the retention and loss of these materials inside the formation, and the numerical simulation of the nano material flowing in the pores.

IOSR Journals , 2019

This paper presents a review on the application of nanotechnology for enhancing oil recovery in oil and gas industry. Different types of nanoparticles; metallic, metal oxide, inorganic organic and magnetic nanoparticles has been reviewed. Application of nanotechnology in oil and gas industry has been revised in enhanced oil recovery, corrosion and scale inhibition, drilling and hydraulic fracturing fluids, exploration and reservoir characterization, reservoir cementing, production and stimulation. Challenges and current research gaps; cost ineffective route for synthesis and delivery of nanoparticle, mechanism for migration and transport behaviour of nanomaterials through a porous media, determination of size of nanomaterials to secure effective penetration into porous reservoir and agglomeration of nanoparticles in a coarse and harsh conditions of sub-surfaces were also discussed.

Chemistry of the injected water has been investigated as an important parameter to improve/enhance oil recovery (IOR/EOR). Numerous extensive experiments have observed that water chemistry, such as ionic composition and salinity, can be modified for IOR/EOR purposes. However, the possible oil displacement mechanism remains debatable. Nanoparticle recently becomes more popular that have shown a great potential for IOR/EOR purposes in lab-scale, where in most experiments, waterbased fluid were used as dispersed fluid. As yet, there has been no discussion in the literature on the study of water chemistry on enhanced oil recovery using silica-based nanoparticles. A broad range of laboratory studies involving rock, nanoparticles and fluid characterization; fluidfluid and fluid-rock interactions; surface conductivity measurement; coreflood experiment; injection strategy formulation; filtration mechanism and contact angle measurement are conducted to investigate the impact of water chemistry, such as water salinity and ionic composition including hardness cations, on the performance of silicabased nanoparticles in IOR/EOR process and reveal possible displacement mechanism. The experimental results demonstrated that water salinity and ionic composition significantly impacted oil recovery using hydrophilic silica-based nanoparticles and that the oil recovery increased with the salinity. The primary findings from this study are that the water salinity, the ionic composition and the injection strategy are important parameters to be considered in Nano-EOR.

Chemical flooding is of increasing interest and importance due to high oil prices and the need to increase oil production. Research in nanotechnology in the petroleum industry is advancing rapidly, and an enormous progress in the application of nanotechnology in this area is to be expected. The nanotechnology has been widely used in several other industries, and the interest in the oil industry is increasing. Nanotechnology has the potential to profoundly change enhanced oil recovery and to improve mechanism of recovery, and it is chosen as an alternative method to unlock the remaining oil resources and applied as a new enhanced oil recovery method in last decade. This paper therefore focuses on the reviews of the application of nanotechnology in chemical flooding process in oil recovery and reviews the applications of nanomaterials for improving oil recovery that have been proposed to explain oil displacement by polymer flooding within oil reservoirs, and also this paper highlights the research advances of polymer in oil recovery. Nanochemical flooding is an immature method from an application point of view.

SPE Reservoir Characterization and Simulation Conference and Exhibition, 2013

Align with current dynamic technology development, waterflooding techniques have been improved and optimized to have better oil recovery performance. In addition the latest worldwide industries innovation trends are miniaturization and nanotechnology materials such as nanoparticles. Hence one of the ideas is using nanoparticles to assist waterflood performance. However it is crucial to have a clear depiction of some parameters that may influences displacement process. The focus of this study is to investigate the effects of some parameters influencing oil recovery process due to nanoparticles such as particle size, rock permeability, initial rock wettability, injection rate and temperature. This study is part of our ongoing research in developing nanofluids for future or alternative enhanced oil recovery (Nano-EOR) method. Three different sizes of hydrophilic silica nanoparticles with single particle diameter range from 7 to 40 nm were employed and have been characterized under scan...

American Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 2020

After secondary flooding, the process of injecting chemicals such as Nanoparticles into the reservoir in order to release and produce the trapped oil in that reservoir is called chemical flooding enhanced oil recovery (CEOR). The trapped oil is due to some forces such as viscous, gravity and capillary forces. Several reservoir problems have been solved with the use of Nanoparticles but the disadvantage is the retention of these Nanoparticles in the pore spaces which can cause pore blockage of reservoir rock and reduce its permeability. The primary aim of oil industry is to find the effect of these nanoparticles on oil recovery. In this work, some types of nanoparticles were selected for sand-pack oil displacement flood test. These Nanoparticles are Magnesium oxide (MgO), Aluminum oxide (Al 2 O 3) and silicon oxide (SiO 2). They were selected because of their effect to improve oil recovery. They were used to conduct enhanced oil recovery and to evaluate the effect of their retention in porous media at 45°C and 3000-3500 Pisa. The Nanoparticles were dispersed in brine. The control experiment and the experiment when Nanoparticles were dispersed in brine were the two set of experiment conducted. The control experiment was used as a bench mark to compare the effect of nanoparticles on oil recovery. From the results obtained from this experiment, Aluminum oxide (Al 2 O 3) was the best performed Nanoparticle after enhanced oil recovery flooding process. Nanoparticles were used to prepare the nanofluids used for tertiary recovery. Nanofluids used to displace oil yield better results but when only brine was used, the recovery was low compared with that of nanoparticles. Increase in nanoparticle concentration increases oil recovery. There was a decrease in permeability of the reservoir rock. Increase in nanoparticles concentration increases the total cost of preparing the nanofluid. The decrease in permeability is caused by pore blockage due to nanoparticles retention in porous media. Only Al 2 O 3 at 0.2%wt is economical feasible compared with other nanoparticles. The ability of nanoparticles to alter certain factors in the formation and in oil properties can be taken as advantage on oil recovery.

PLOS ONE

Recent developments propose renewed use of surface-modified nanoparticles (NPs) for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) due to improved stability and reduced porous media retention. The enhanced surface properties render the nanoparticles more suitable compared to bare nanoparticles, for increasing the displacement efficiency of waterflooding. However, the EOR mechanisms using NPs are still not well established. This work investigates the effect of in-situ surface-modified silica nanoparticles (SiO 2 NPs) on interfacial tension (IFT) and wettability behavior as a prevailing oil recovery mechanism. For this purpose, the nanoparticles have been synthesized via a one-step sol-gel method using surface-modification agents, including Triton X-100 (non-ionic surfactant) and polyethylene glycol (polymer), and characterized using various techniques. These results exhibit the well-defined spherical particles, particularly in the presence of Triton X-100 (TX-100), with particle diameter between 13 to 27 nm. To this end, SiO 2 nanofluids were formed by dispersing nanoparticles (0.05 wt. %, 0.075 wt.%, 0.1 wt.%, and 0.2 wt.%) in 3 wt.% NaCl to study the impact of surface functionalization on the stability of the nanoparticle suspension. The optimal stability conditions were obtained at 0.1 wt.% SiO 2 NPs at a basic pH of 10 and 9.5 for TX-100/ SiO 2 and PEG/ SiO nanofluids, respectively. Finally, the surface-treated SiO 2 nanoparticles were found to change the wettability of treated (oil-wet) surface into water-wet by altering the contact angle from 130˚to 78˚(in case of TX-100/SiO 2 ) measured against glass surface representing carbonate reservoir rock. IFT results also reveal that the surfactant treatment greatly reduced the oil-water IFT by 30%, compared to other applied NPs. These experimental results suggest that the use of surface-modified SiO 2 nanoparticles could facilitate the displacement efficiency by reducing IFT and altering the wettability of carbonate reservoir towards water-wet, which is attributed to more homogeneity and better dispersion of surface-treated silica NPs compared to bare-silica NPs.

Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes aim to recover trapped oil left in reservoirs after primary and secondary recovery methods. New materials and additives are needed to make EOR economical in challenging reservoirs or harsh environments. Nanoparticles have been widely studied for EOR, but nanoparticles with polymer chains grafted to the surface-known as polymercoated nanoparticles (PNPs)-are an emerging class of materials that may be superior to nanoparticles for EOR due to improved solubility and stability, greater stabilization of foams and emulsions, and more facile transport through porous media. Here, we review prior research, current challenges, and future research opportunities in the application of PNPs for EOR. We focus on studies of PNPs for improving mobility control, altering surface wettability, and for investigating their transport through porous media. For each case, we highlight both fundamental studies of PNP behavior and more applied studies of their use in EOR processes. We also touch on a related class of materials comprised of surfactant and nanoparticle blends. Finally, we briefly outline the major challenges in the field, which must be addressed to successfully implement PNPs in EOR applications. V C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014, 131, 40576.

Nanomaterials, 2019

Recently, polymer-coated nanoparticles were proposed for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) due to their improved properties such as solubility, stability, stabilization of emulsions and low particle retention on the rock surface. This work investigated the potential of various polymer-coated silica nanoparticles (PSiNPs) as additives to the injection seawater for oil recovery. Secondary and tertiary core flooding experiments were carried out with neutral-wet Berea sandstone at ambient conditions. Oil recovery parameters of nanoparticles such as interfacial tension (IFT) reduction, wettability alteration and log-jamming effect were investigated. Crude oil from the North Sea field was used. The concentrated solutions of PSiNPs were diluted to 0.1 wt % in synthetic seawater. Experimental results show that PSiNPs can improve water flood oil recovery efficiency. Secondary recoveries of nanofluid ranged from 60% to 72% of original oil in place (OOIP) compared to 56% OOIP achieved by reference water flood. In tertiary recovery mode, the incremental oil recovery varied from 2.6% to 5.2% OOIP. The IFT between oil and water was reduced in the presence of PSiNPs from 10.6 to 2.5-6.8 mN/m, which had minor effect on EOR. Permeability measurements indicated negligible particle retention within the core, consistent with the low differential pressure observed throughout nanofluid flooding. Amott-Harvey tests indicated wettability alteration from neutral-to water-wet condition. The overall findings suggest that PSiNPs have more potential as secondary EOR agents than tertiary agents, and the main recovery mechanism was found to be wettability alteration.

Egyptian Journal of Petroleum, 2013

The role of nanoparticles in enhancing oil recovery from oil reservoirs is an increasingly important topic of research. Nanoparticles have the properties that are potentially useful for enhanced oil recovery processes, as they are solid and two orders of magnitude smaller than colloidal particles. This paper presents a comparison between the efficiency of modified silica nanoparticles in enhancing oil recovery from two different Iranian light and intermediate oil reservoirs. The mechanisms used to recover additional oil would be oil-water interfacial tension reduction and wettability alteration. Oil phase contact angles and oil-water interfacial tensions were measured in the absence and the presence of nano fluids' different concentrations (1-4 g/L). Results showed that the interfacial tension reduces dramatically in the presence of nanoparticles for both light and intermediate oil. In addition oil phase contact angle results showed a transformation of rock wettability from water-wet toward oil-wet condition. However, these nanoparticles are more capable in the reduction of the interfacial tension and the alteration of wettability in the case of light oil reservoir. A comparison between recovery results indicated that these nanoparticles are more efficient in light oil reservoirs and produce more incremental amount of oil after primary and secondary processes.

Applied Sciences, 2018

During the past half-century, the prefix “nano” attached to several words, such as “technology”, “motors”, “device”, and so on has denoted cutting-edge research fields and topics at the forefront of classical scientific disciplines. Possible application fields have been frequently evoked, even if real-life examples are still difficult to find. The present review analyzes how nanotechnology is utilized in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes so as to increase the efficiency of mature oilfields. Nanotechnology in EOR is classified into three categories: nanoparticles/nanofluids, nanoemulsions, and nanocatalysts. The advantages at the nanoscale are also described and discussed, including an overview of manufacturing methods as well as the concerns about their possible environmental impacts. Clearly, nanotechnology has the potential to boost EOR techniques, although there are still many questions and drawbacks to be tackled.