Enhanced oil recovery using oil-in-water (o/w) emulsion stabilized by nanoparticle, surfactant and polymer in the presence of NaCl
TL;DR: In this paper, a novel formulation of oil-in-water (o/w) emulsion stabilized using nanoparticle-surfactant-polymer in the presence of salt (NaCl) is investigated for improved oil recovery at conditions of high pressure (13.6 MPa) and high temperature (313-363 K).
Abstract: A conventional waterflood often leads to unsuccessful recovery of oil, as most of the injected water tends to channel into the more permeable zones. Pickering emulsions stabilized using surfactant and colloidal particles, such as nanoparticles, are gaining wider recognition in the petroleum industry due to their better thermal stability and stabilized flow behavior. In this work, a novel formulation of oil-in-water (o/w) emulsion stabilized using nanoparticle–surfactant–polymer in the presence of salt (NaCl) is investigated for improved oil recovery at conditions of high pressure (13.6 MPa) and high temperature (313–363 K). We report a comparative study of performance of o/w emulsion flooding with conventional water flooding for enhanced oil recovery of a crude oil having a viscosity of 161 mPa s at 313 K in a Berea sandstone core using core-flood experiments. The results of core flooding tests show that an incremental oil recovery of more than 23% of original oil in place over water flooding can be obtai...
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TL;DR: It is concluded that silica based nanofluid formulations can be very effective as enhanced hydrocarbon recovery agents and can potentially be used for improving the efficiency of CO2 geo-storage.
322 citations
TL;DR: A review on the application of nanoparticles and technology in the petroleum industry, and focusing on enhanced oil recovery (EOR), is provided in this paper, where the authors present a wide range of knowledge and expertise related to the nanotechnology application in general, and the EOR process in particular.
Abstract: Research on nanotechnology application in the oil and gas industry has been growing rapidly in the past decade, as evidenced by the number of scientific articles published in the field. With oil and gas reserves harder to find, access, and produce, the pursuit of more game-changing technologies that can address the challenges of the industry has stimulated this growth. Nanotechnology has the potential to revolutionize the petroleum industry both upstream and downstream, including exploration, drilling, production, and enhanced oil recovery (EOR), as well as refinery processes. It provides a wide range of alternatives for technologies and materials to be utilized in the petroleum industry. Nanoscale materials in various forms such as solid composites, complex fluids, and functional nanoparticle-fluid combinations are key to the new technological advances. This paper aims to provide a state-of-the-art review on the application of nanoparticles and technology in the petroleum industry, and focuses on enhanced oil recovery. We briefly summarize nanotechnology application in exploration and reservoir characterization, drilling and completion, production and stimulation, and refinery. Thereafter, this paper focuses on the application of nanoparticles in EOR. The different types of nanomaterials, e.g., silica, aluminum oxides, iron oxide, nickel oxide, titanium oxide, zinc oxide, zirconium oxide, polymers, and carbon nanotubes that have been studied in EOR are discussed with respect to their properties, their performance, advantages, and disadvantages. We then elaborate upon the parameters that will affect the performance of nanoparticles in EOR, and guidelines for promising recovery factors are emphasized. The mechanisms of the nanoparticles in the EOR processes are then underlined, such as wettability alteration, interfacial tension reduction, disjoining pressure, and viscosity control. The objective of this review is to present a wide range of knowledge and expertise related to the nanotechnology application in the petroleum industry in general, and the EOR process in particular. The challenges and future research directions for nano-EOR are pinpointed.
186 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a series of contact angle (θ) investigations on initially oil-wet calcite surfaces to quantify the performance of hydrophilic silica nanoparticles for wettability alteration are conducted at typical in-situ high pressure (CO2), temperature and salinity conditions.
117 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of temperature, exposure time and particle size on wettability alteration of oil-wet calcite surface were comprehensively investigated; moreover, the stability of the nanofluids was examined.
105 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a novel nanofluid based on the sulfonated graphene (G-DS-Su) for enhanced oil recovery is developed, which is applied in core flood experiments.
74 citations
References
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TL;DR: In this article, solution phase syntheses and size-selective separation methods to prepare semiconductor and metal nanocrystals, tunable in size from ∼1 to 20 nm and monodisperse to ≤ 5%, are presented.
Abstract: ▪ Abstract Solution phase syntheses and size-selective separation methods to prepare semiconductor and metal nanocrystals, tunable in size from ∼1 to 20 nm and monodisperse to ≤5%, are presented. Preparation of monodisperse samples enables systematic characterization of the structural, electronic, and optical properties of materials as they evolve from molecular to bulk in the nanometer size range. Sample uniformity makes it possible to manipulate nanocrystals into close-packed, glassy, and ordered nanocrystal assemblies (superlattices, colloidal crystals, supercrystals). Rigorous structural characterization is critical to understanding the electronic and optical properties of both nanocrystals and their assemblies. At inter-particle separations 5–100 A, dipole-dipole interactions lead to energy transfer between neighboring nanocrystals, and electronic tunneling between proximal nanocrystals gives rise to dark and photoconductivity. At separations <5 A, exchange interactions cause otherwise insulating ass...
4,116 citations
TL;DR: Pore-throat sizes in siliciclastic rocks form a continuum from the submillimeter to the nanometer scale as mentioned in this paper, which provides a useful perspective for considering the emplacement of petroleum in consolidated siliclastics and fluid flow through fine-grained source rocks now being exploited as reservoirs.
Abstract: Pore-throat sizes in siliciclastic rocks form a continuum from the submillimeter to the nanometer scale. That continuum is documented in this article using previously published data on the pore and pore-throat sizes of conventional reservoir rocks, tight-gas sandstones, and shales. For measures of central tendency(mean,mode,median),pore-throatsizes(diameters) are generally greater than2 mm in conventionalreservoir rocks, range from about 2 to 0.03 mm in tight-gas sandstones, and rangefrom0.1to0.005 mminshales.Hydrocarbonmolecules, asphaltenes, ring structures, paraffins, and methane, form another continuum, ranging from 100 A ˚ (0.01 mm) for asphaltenes to 3.8 A ˚ (0.00038 mm) for methane. The pore-throat size continuum provides a useful perspective for considering (1) the emplacement of petroleum in consolidated siliciclastics and (2) fluid flow through fine-grained source rocks now being exploited as reservoirs.
1,083 citations
"Enhanced oil recovery using oil-in-..." refers background in this paper
...The pore sizes are usually greater than 2mm for conventional reservoir rocks (Nelson, 2009)....
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TL;DR: In this article, a nanofluid-enhanced water-based drilling mud (NWBM) was used to address efficient drilling in an HPHT (High Pressure and High Temperature) environment.
243 citations
01 Jan 2010
TL;DR: In this article, the phase behavior with respect to the initial water/oil volume ratio (IVR), salinity, nanoparticle concentration and nanoparticle wettability was systematically examined.
Abstract: Nanoparticle-stabilized emulsions have attracted many researchers’ attention in recent years due to many of their specific characteristics and advantages over conventional emulsions stabilized by surfactants or by colloidal particles. For example, the solid nanoparticles can be irreversibly attached to the oil-water interface and form a rigid nanoparticle monolayer on the droplet surfaces, which induce highly stable emulsions. Those emulsions can withstand harsh conditions. Compared to colloidal particles, nanoparticles are one hundred times smaller, and emulsions stabilized by them can travel a long distance in reservoirs without much retention. Oil-in-water and water-in-oil emulsions that are stabilized with different surface-coated silica nanoparticles of uniform size have been developed; these emulsions remain stable for several months without coalescence. The wettability of the nanoparticle determines the type of emulsion formed. The phase behavior with respect to the initial water/oil volume ratio (IVR), salinity, nanoparticle concentration and nanoparticle wettability was systematically examined. The emulsions were also characterized by measuring their droplet size and their apparent viscosity. Employing the hard-sphere liquid theory for nano-scale dispersions, the correlation between droplet/droplet interaction forces and droplet/droplet equilibrium separation distances has also been examined. Introduction Oil/water emulsions stabilized by surfactants are frequently used in the oil industry. Emulsions are also producible with solid particles as stabilizers. These are called “Pickering emulsions”. Such emulsions have many advantages over conventional surfactant-stabilized emulsions, and are widely used in food, pharmacy and cosmetics industry, but are rarely applied for oil recovery purpose. This is because the solid stabilizers they use are colloidal particles, which are in micron size and easily trapped in the rock pores. Thus the long-distance propagation of emulsions made with them is unfeasible in reservoirs. Nanoparticles have properties potentially useful for certain oil recovery processes, as they are solid and two orders of magnitude smaller than colloidal particles. The nanoparticle stabilized emulsions droplets are small enough to pass typical pores, and flow through the reservoir rock without much retention. They also remain stable despite harsh conditions in reservoirs due to the irreversible adsorption of the nanoparticles on their droplet surface. In addition, the large viscosity of nanoparticle-stabilized emulsions can help to manage the mobility ratio during flooding, which provides a viable method to push highly viscous oil from the subsurface. Therefore, they have significant potential in reservoir engineering applications. In recent years, nanoparticle-stabilized emulsions have triggered great interest. Active research efforts are on-going in many areas, especially in chemical engineering and materials science. These research efforts led to the detailed characterization of the properties of emulsions solely stabilized by nanoparticles in many aspects, e.g., emulsion type, droplet size, stability, bulk viscosity, and interfacial properties, etc. The influence of experimental conditions such as nanoparticle wettability, particle concentration, their initial location (i.e., dispersed in water or dispersed in oil), salt concentration and pH of the aqueous phase, as well as the oil type, on the emulsion system has also elucidated, and detailed reviews are available (Binks and Lumdson,2000a, 2002b; Binks et al.,2005; Binks and Rodrigues, 2005; Horozov, et al., 2007). The most commonly used nanoparticles are spherical fumed silica particles with a diameter in the range of several to tens of nanometers. Their wettability is controlled by the coating extent of silanol groups on their surface (Binks, 2002). The nanoparticles can be made hydrophilic with high percentage (over 90%) of silanol groups on the surface, and consequently they form stable oil-in-water (o/w) emulsions. On the other hand, when the silica particles are only coated about 10% on their surface by silanol groups, they are hydrophobic and yield water-in-oil (w/o) emulsions. Furthermore, when the nanoparticles
231 citations
TL;DR: The possibility of stabilising oil-water mixtures using wax particles alone is reported and surface-active long chain ester or acid molecules adsorb to freshly created interfaces giving rise to excellent stability to coalescence at high temperatures.
151 citations
"Enhanced oil recovery using oil-in-..." refers background in this paper
...However, the o/w emulsion stabilized by conventional surfactants and polymers often gets destabilized at the in situ reservoir conditions affecting the oil recovery and thus need attention (Binks & Rocher, 2009)....
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