Enhanced Heavy Oil Recovery in Sandstone Cores Using TiO₂ Nanofluids

Abstract

Anatase and amorphous TiO2 nanoparticles were used to improve recovery of heavy oil from sandstone cores. Before performing core floods, the stability of nanoparticles at different salinities was tested using ζ potential and ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) methods. While water recovered only 49% of the oil in the core flood experiments, 0.01% anatase structure solution recovered 80% of the oil after injecting two pore volumes at optimum conditions. To understand the mechanism responsible for improved recovery, contact angle measurements were performed on the rock surface before and after treatment with the nanoparticle solution. Contact angle measurements showed that the rock wettability changed from oil-wet to water-wet conditions after treatment with nanoparticles. In 0.01% concentration, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) results showed homogeneous deposition of nanoparticles onto the core plug surface and a few nanorods with a diameter about 60 nm were observed. Energy-dispersive spectrometry (EDS) confirms diffusion of nanoparticles in porous media and uniform distribution. When the nanoparticle concentration was increased, more nanorods with the same diameter were composed, which resulted in plugging to occur. These results indicated the possibility of TiO2 application in enhanced oil recovery (EOR); however, more investigation is required to overcome multi-nanoparticle deposition onto pores.

Transport and Deposition of Carbon Nanoparticles in Saturated Porous Media

“…The use of nanoparticles (NPs) for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) has received intensive attention since 2008, and much work has been conducted that can be generally categorized as: (i) the development of 'contrast-agent' type NPs to improve the detection limitation of seismic and EM techniques for better reservoir characterization [1][2][3]; (ii) the use of NPs as property modifiers, i.e., to alter rock wettability and interfacial tension at the oil/water interface in order to increase oil recovery rates [4][5][6][7]; and (iii) the use of NPs for conformance control such as nanoparticle-stabilized emulsions, and gelation materials to block the easy flow paths [8,9]. All these applications require nanoparticles to transport long distances in reservoir rocks with minimal retention.…”

Effects of silica-based nanostructures with raspberry-like morphology and surfactant on the interfacial behavior of light, medium, and heavy crude oils at oil-aqueous interfaces

“…The surfactant in turn affected the interactions between the nanoparticles by increasing repulsion forces between the SiO 2 NPs. The lack of surfactant at higher SiO 2 NPs concentrations indicates that the SiO 2 NPs produced larger SiO 2 nanoaggregates with larger-thansuitable diameters (Cieslinski and Krygier 2014;Ehtesabi et al 2014). The smaller diameters of nanoaggregates reported in previous findings were most likely the consequence of longer sonication times which yielded a more thorough mixture of the NPs into the suspension.…”

“…The smaller diameters of nanoaggregates reported in previous findings were most likely the consequence of longer sonication times which yielded a more thorough mixture of the NPs into the suspension. Furthermore, unlike similar studies detailing various nanoaggregates, we used a higher concentration of 5% brine to generate higher aggregation rates and larger nanoaggregate sizes (Ehtesabi et al 2014;Hendraningrat and Torsaeter 2014). This variance in brine characteristics may serve as a Ò 20: e raw data, and f processed data in the Loess Model in R possible explanation for the larger size of nanoaggregates detected in our study in which the large standard deviations observed for the nanoaggregate size indicate a high degree of polydispersity of the nanofluids.…”

Applications of nanotechnology in oil and gas industry: Progress and perspective

“…Stabilize wellbore; reduce filter loss; improve rheology; increase thermal stability Alimohammadi et al, [14] Sharma et al, [15] Parizad and Shahbazi, [16] Ehtesabi et al, [17] Qiu, [18] and Di et al [19] 2. Change the wettability of porous surfaces of sandstone 3.…”