A perspective on nanotechnology applied to carbon capture, use and storage in the oil and gas industry

Abstract

La industria petrolera mundial está llamada hoy en día a realizar operaciones carbono neutrales que permitan reducir la cantidad de emisiones de CO2 actuales. Sin embargo, existen diferentes limitaciones técnico-económicas que impiden avanzar hacia tecnologías de captura, uso y almacenamiento de carbono (CCUS por sus siglas en inglés) con niveles de desarrollo (TRL por sus siglas en inglés) altos que permitan su escalamiento bajo condiciones reales. Es así que la nanotecnología ha tomado un importante protagonismo en los últimos años en el potenciamiento de diferentes procesos CCUS. En ese documento se presenta una perspectiva acerca del rol de la nanotecnología en la descarbonización de la industria petrolera, con énfasis en posibles sinergias con la industria cementera, almacenamiento inteligente de carbono, y procesos de recobro mejorado (EOR) y aumento de productividad con CO2 y/o flue gas.

Expansion of Nanotechnology-Based Chemically Enhanced Oil Recovery Field Applications in Colombia: An Approach from Laboratory Experiments, Effluent Follow-Up, and Machine Learning

“…Another opportunity consists of developing biosurfactants and bionanoparticles for CEOR processes or even for applications in mobility control in CO 2 -EOR processes, implying important benefits in reducing the CO 2 footprint and using CO 2 with possibilities of underground sequestration. 86 Also, nanotechnology can offer solutions by designing carbon quantum dot nanomaterials (CQDs) with exclusive fluorescence properties. Recent studies 21,87,88 have shown that CQDs can be injected to know the connectivity of the patterns, and even through integration into the CEOR processes, the arrival time of the surfactant can be determined.…”

“…Further, reservoir simulation strategies, including history matching, should be coupled with data science and machine learning to have a broader panorama of the oil declining rate and how different operational variables affect the well performance. Another opportunity consists of developing biosurfactants and bionanoparticles for CEOR processes or even for applications in mobility control in CO 2 -EOR processes, implying important benefits in reducing the CO 2 footprint and using CO 2 with possibilities of underground sequestration . Also, nanotechnology can offer solutions by designing carbon quantum dot nanomaterials (CQDs) with exclusive fluorescence properties.…”