Despite the progress made on renewable energy, oil and gas remains the world’s primary energy source. Meanwhile, large amounts of oil deposits remain unrecovered after application of traditional oil recovery methods. Chemical enhanced oil recovery (EOR) has been adjudged as an efficient oil recovery technique to recover bypassed oil and residual oil trapped in the reservoir. This EOR method relies on the injection of chemicals to boost oil recovery. In this overview, an up-to-date synopsis of chemical EOR with detailed explanation of the chemicals used, and the mechanism governing their oil recovery application have been discussed. Challenges encountered in the application of the various conventional chemical EOR methods were highlighted, and solutions to overcome the challenges were proffered. Besides, the recent trend of incorporating nanotechnology and their synergistic effects on conventional chemicals stability and efficiency for EOR were also explored and analysed. Finally, laboratory results and field projects were outlined. The review of experimental studies shows that pore-scale mechanisms of conventional chemical EOR is enhanced by incorporating nanotechnology, hence, resulted in higher efficiency. Moreover, the use of ionic liquid chemicals and novel alkaline–cosolvent–polymer technology shows good potentials. This overview presents an extensive information about chemical EOR applications for sustainable energy production.

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An overview of chemical enhanced oil recovery: recent advances and prospects

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Experimental investigation of minimization in surfactant adsorption and improvement in surfactant-foam stability in presence of silicon dioxide and aluminum oxide nanoparticles

Tan Xin Kun

Papers

Bulk and bubble-scale experimental studies of influence of nanoparticles on foam stability

Influence of critical parameters on nanoparticles-surfactant stabilized CO2 foam stability at sub-critical and supercritical conditions