A Realistic Look at Nanostructured Material as an Innovative Approach for Enhanced Oil Recovery Process Upgrading

Abstract

With the continuous rise in energy demand and decline in reserves, the Petroleum Industries are constantly in search of inventive and novel approaches to optimize hydrocarbon recovery despite several decades of deployment of conventional and enhanced strategies. This chapter presents an in-depth analysis of nanomaterial (nanoparticles), their unique characteristics and potentials in relation to smart field development, enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and CO 2 geosequestration. The particles surface functionalities, unique size dependent property, adsorption, and transport behavior were scrutinized. The materials precise role in enhancing reservoir parameters that influences rock-fluid interactions, and reservoir fluid distribution and displacement such as permeability, wettability, interfacial tension, and asphaltene aggregate growth inhibition were evaluated. The study argues that the application of nanoparticle based fluids as novel EOR approach offers more holistic measures, potentials, and opportunities than micro and macro particles and can stimulate the continuous evolution of EOR processes even under harsh reservoir conditions, thus, offering better benefits over conventional surface-active agents. We believe this study will significantly impact the understanding of EOR with respect to nanoparticles, which is crucial for augmenting reservoir processes and to accelerate the realization of nanoparticles for EOR and CO 2 sequestration processes at industrial scale.Keywords: EOR, nanoparticles, adsorption, Asphaltene, wettability, IFT, permeability, viscosity, CO 2 © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. OverviewIt is a fact that the period of cheap hydrocarbon recovery is waning as hydrocarbons are currently been explored in remote regions under harsh reservoir conditions. The accessible hydrocarbon resources are constantly declining with a corresponding increase in energy demand which invariably contributes to the price irregularities in the oil and gas industry. Globally, the growth in energy demand appears to be predominant amidst feasible unconventional energy options (renewable energy). Unarguably, newer energy sources, such as nuclear, wind, geo-thermal and solar are effective measures for addressing energy shortage. However, they are yet to be ample alternatives for substituting the role of oil in meeting the ever-rising energy demand. To date, these demands are currently being substantiated via hydrocarbon sources especially petroleum -oil is still the most valuable product with great global economic impact. Currently, diverse conventional strategies (waterflooding), and enhanced methods (use of chemicals, gases, and microbes) are been deployed in oil fields, regardless, these challenges persist. More efficient, yet cost-effective, environmenta...

Role of Phase-Dependent Dielectric Properties of Alumina Nanoparticles in Electromagnetic-Assisted Enhanced Oil Recovery

“…In this section, the effects of different phases of Al 2 O 3 -NPs on the oil recovery were investigated, with and without EM field. The displacement efficiency ( E D , %) at a specific temperature due to nano-EOR was determined and tabulated, using the formula as follows [ 61 ]: where S or 1 represents residual oil saturation after the injection of brine (waterflooding) and S or 2 represents residual oil saturation after nano-EOR. The summaries of these flooding experiments are also tabulated below.…”

Performance Evaluation of Silica–Graphene Quantum Dots for Enhanced Oil Recovery from Carbonate Reservoirs

“…In the literature, various quantitative and qualitative methods are available for wettability measurement. Quantitative methods are the Amott method and contact angle measurements, whereas qualitative methods are the imbibition test, wettability analysis from the relative permeability curve, and microscopic visualization . Among all these methods, the contact angle method is an effective measurement approach to analyze wettability in the reservoir.…”

“…Quantitative methods are the Amott method and contact angle measurements, whereas qualitative methods are the imbibition test, wettability analysis from the relative permeability curve, and microscopic visualization. 29 Among all these methods, the contact angle method is an effective measurement approach to analyze wettability in the reservoir. In the current study, the contact angle at a temperature of 70 °C and a pressure of 1200 psi was measured using a VIT-600 apparatus shown in Figure 2.…”

Impact of nanoparticles on the CO2-brine interfacial tension at high pressure and temperature

“…The potential of nanofluids in the upstream oil and gas industry has been highlighted recently [1]; this includes the development of novel nanofluids for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) [2][3][4][5], gas recovery [6,7], drilling [8], fines migration control [9,10], and fluid flow behavior in the porous medium [11], and, more recently, carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects [12,13].…”

“…For an ideal cylindrical capillary tube. (1) where is the average pore throat radius of the largest connected pore, is the pressure in the CO 2 phase, and is the pressure in the water phase.…”