Improving water injectivity and enhancing oil recovery by wettability control using nanopowders

Adsorption of silica nanoparticles onto calcite: Equilibrium, kinetic, thermodynamic and DLVO analysis

“…Moreover, nano-fluid (i.e. suspension of NP in a fluid) has been proved to have potential application for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) [9,10]. Among the different types of NP, SNP have been mentioned to be suitable for EOR because of their ability to be easily surface functionalized and some other advantages as noted by Miranda [11] .…”

“…Among the different types of NP, SNP have been mentioned to be suitable for EOR because of their ability to be easily surface functionalized and some other advantages as noted by Miranda [11] . However, most of silica based NP applied for EOR in sandstone formations [9,11] and their application to carbonate systems are not well discussed.…”

“…For the individual applications, the first proposed mechanism is wettability alteration of reservoir rock. Based on wettability of surface, three types of SNP are experimentally utilized for EOR: lipophobic and hydrophilic polysilicon NP, hydrophobic and lipophilic polysilicon NP and neutrally wet polysilicon NP [9,14]. In conjunction with wettability alteration, some authors mentioned that interfacial tension reduction can be another mechanism responsible for the increase in oil recovery [15].…”

Mechanism governing nanoparticle flow behaviour in porous media: insight for enhanced oil recovery applications

“…Oil recovery can increase by 20% when high concentration of nanoparticles is injected. They suggested 2-3% concentration as increase in concentration can result to decrease in permeability [26]. This is usually associated with the nanoparticle size, salt concentration and bulk volume [27,28].…”

“…Again, the work of Li and Torsaeter [34] was an improved study on wettability alteration and they confirmed earlier reports. Ju et al [26] using a physical model, mathematical model, and a numerical simulator were able to increase recovery by 15.38% when treated with waterwetting wettability control agent (IWWCA) and increasing the oil-wetting wettability control agent (IOWCA) improves recovery (60-80%) in water injection rate. Onyekonwu and Ogolo [7] studied the wettability alteration of three different polysilicon nanoparticles to enhance oil recovery.…”