Application of functionalized silica-graphene nanohybrid for the enhanced oil recovery performance

Tajik, Sanaz; Shahrabadi, Abbas; Rashidi, Alimorad; Jalilian, Milad; Yadegari, Amir

doi:10.1016/j.colsurfa.2018.08.029

Cited by 51 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Several studies have investigated the injection of NPs with brine, polymer, and even foams to enhance oil recovery 14 , 15 . While they often exhibit an insignificant impact on IFT, NPs can alter the wettability of mineral surfaces and hence decrease the capillary forces responsible for trapping oil inside the pores 16 , 17 . The mechanism of wettability alteration may be triggered by nanoparticle adsorption on the rock or their ability to displace oil from mineral surfaces due to the structural disjoining pressure 18 – 21 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, oxygen-containing groups in functionalized silica-graphene nanohybrids contributed to IFT reduction and increased macroscopic sweep efficiency. It was postulated that the electrostatic interactions between these groups and positively charged sodium in brine improved the stability of oil-in-water emulsions 17 . While insightful, most of these mechanisms were inferred empirically from macro-scale experiments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pore-scale experimental investigation of oil recovery enhancement in oil-wet carbonates using carbonaceous nanofluids

Zhang

Mohamed

Goual

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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This study investigates the pore-scale displacement mechanisms of crude oil in aged carbonate rocks using novel engineered carbon nanosheets (E-CNS) derived from sub-bituminous coal. The nanosheets, synthesized by a simple top-down technique, were stable in brine without any additional chemicals. Owing to their amphiphilic nature and nano-size, they exhibited dual properties of surfactants and nanoparticles and reduced the oil/brine interfacial tension (IFT) from 14.6 to 5.5 mN/m. X-ray micro-computed tomography coupled with miniature core-flooding was used to evaluate their ability to enhance oil recovery. Pore-scale displacement mechanisms were investigated using in-situ contact angle measurements, oil ganglia distribution analysis, and three-dimensional visualization of fluid occupancy maps in pores of different sizes. Analysis of these maps at the end of various flooding stages revealed that the nanofluid invaded into medium and small pores that were inaccessible to base brine. IFT reduction was identified as the main displacement mechanism responsible for oil recovery during 1 to 8 pore volumes (PVs) of nanofluid injection. Subsequently, wettability alteration was the dominant mechanism during the injection of 8 and 32 PVs, decreasing the average contact angle from 134° (oil wet) to 85° (neutral wet). In-situ saturation data reveals that flooding with only 0.1 wt% of E-CNS in brine resulted in incremental oil production of 20%, highlighting the significant potential of this nanofluid as a recovery agent.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pore-scale experimental investigation of oil recovery enhancement in oil-wet carbonates using carbonaceous nanofluids

Zhang

Mohamed

Goual

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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“…Therefore, microfluidic models become a powerful tool to investigate the microscopic mechanisms of NPs for EOR, including the in situ emulsification . Since most available microfluidic studies were based on a two-dimensional (2D) micromodel, it is inherently difficult to study emulsion or foam flow due to the limited pore geometry, , most of which focused only on the investigations of IFT reduction and wettability alteration caused by NPs − while a few discussed the NP-stabilized emulsion flow using an emulsion generator or the so-called “2.5D micromodel” in the literature. − The most recent three-dimensional (3D) transparent micromodel packed with glass beads was only used to directly visualize the two-phase fluids flow behaviors and a core–shell nanohydrogel for conformance control under a confocal microscope. − To the best of our knowledge, no research has been done to directly visualize the in situ emulsification during the nanogel flooding using a 3D micromodel, which is a more proper candidate to study the emulsification mechanism with more realistic discontinuous pore throats and pore bodies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Direct Pore-Level Visualization and Verification of In Situ Oil-in-Water Pickering Emulsification during Polymeric Nanogel Flooding for EOR in a Transparent Three-Dimensional Micromodel

et al. 2021

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Different from inorganic nanoparticles, nanosized cross-linked polymeric nanoparticles (nanogels) have been demonstrated to generate more stable Pickering emulsions under harsh conditions for a long term owing to their inherent high hydrophilicity and surface energy. In both core and pore scales, the emulsions are found to be able to form in situ during the nanofluid flooding process for an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) process. Due to the limitation of direct visualization in core scale or deficient pore geometries built by two-dimensional micromodels, the in situ emulsification by nanofluids and emulsion transport are still not being well understood. In this work, we use a three-dimensional transparent porous medium to directly visualize the in situ emulsification during the nanogel flooding process for EOR after water flooding. By synthesizing the nanogel with a fluorescent dye, we find the nanogels adsorbed on the oil–water interface to lower the total interfacial energy and emulsify the large oil droplets into small Pickering oil-in-water emulsions. A potential mechanism for in situ emulsification by nanogels is proposed and discussed. After nanogel flooding, the emulsions trapped in pore throats and those in the effluents are all found encapsulated by the nanogels. After nanogel flooding under different flow rates, the sphericity and diameter changes of remaining oil droplets are quantitatively compared and analyzed using grouped boxplots. It is concluded that in situ emulsification happens during nanogel injection due to the reduction of interfacial tension, which helps to increase the oil recovery rate under different flow rates and pore geometries.

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“…Microfluidics ,, provide direct visualization of micron-scale flow phenomena and are a powerful tool to investigate pore-scale flow mechanics and other physics that are not easy to study directly on coreflood or sandpack experiments. In addition, direct observations on microfluidics platforms can also be easily compared with numerical modeling works. − Specifically, porous micromodels, with names matching their applications as “rock-on-a-chip”, “soil-on-a-chip”, “reservoir-on-a-chip”, “aquifer on a chip”, etc., have been applied to visualize the displacement flow process in porous media, − including some works on EOR with direct injection of nanofluids. − NPs-based secondary oil recovery was studied by Ryles et al They showed that the steady-state IFT between the nanofluid and oil decreases with an increase in the NP concentration, and that increased NP concentration is positively related to final oil recovery. The NP deposition on the solid surface and its positive effect on surface wettability were also visualized. , Bazazi et al compared waterflooding, surfactant flooding, and NP flooding in a glass micromodel saturated with heavy oil and concluded that emulsion formation during heavy oil displacement with chemicals is a major factor in incremental recovery.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hydrophilic Nanoparticle-Based Enhanced Oil Recovery: Microfluidic Investigations on Mechanisms

Agrawal

Darugar

2018

Energy Fuels

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We discovered a novel nanoparticle (NP)–crude oil interaction and propose a mechanism of NP-based enhanced oil recovery. This NP–crude oil interaction and its effects on oil recovery are systematically investigated by conducting microfluidic experiments in both single-pore scale and “reservoir-on-a-chip” scale. It is confirmed that hydrophilic silica NPs in an aqueous phase could lead to dramatic swelling, dewetting, and disjoining of crude oil. The swelling ratio increased with decreased aqueous phase salinity and with increased concentrations of negative charging of NPs. Natural polar components in crude oil is shown to play a very important role. From a pore-scale perspective, this oil swelling and dewetting increased the flow resistance in the swept region and redirected flooding liquid toward the unswept region. From a reservoir perspective, the mobility ratio was reduced because oil swelling and dewetting modified the relative permeabilities. This improvement in sweep efficiency resulted in approximately 11% incremental oil recovery in a completely homogeneous porous micromodel, with 2000 ppm of NPs suspended in seawater.

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Application of functionalized silica-graphene nanohybrid for the enhanced oil recovery performance

Cited by 51 publications

References 43 publications

Pore-scale experimental investigation of oil recovery enhancement in oil-wet carbonates using carbonaceous nanofluids

Pore-scale experimental investigation of oil recovery enhancement in oil-wet carbonates using carbonaceous nanofluids

Direct Pore-Level Visualization and Verification of In Situ Oil-in-Water Pickering Emulsification during Polymeric Nanogel Flooding for EOR in a Transparent Three-Dimensional Micromodel

Hydrophilic Nanoparticle-Based Enhanced Oil Recovery: Microfluidic Investigations on Mechanisms

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