Magnetic Characterization of Nanoparticles Designed for Use As Contrast Agents for Downhole Measurements

Abstract

Nanotechnology has already contributed significantly to advances in several industries, e.g. electronics, biomedical, aerospace, and more recently the energy industries. In particular, nanotechnology has the potential to pioneer changes in several areas of the oil and gas industry, such as exploration, drilling, production, enhanced-oil-recovery (EOR), and refining. For example, superparamagnetic nanoparticles that could act as contrast agents could be used to accurately determine the oil saturation distribution in a reservoir and help determine bypassed oils. Moreover, by correctly functionalizing the surface of the magnetic nanoparticles, colloidal suspensions of these nanoparticles that are stable at high temperatures and high salinities (oil-well conditions) can be prepared and could be co-injected with sweep and/or fracture fluids and their location determined and tracked over time by electromagnetic measurements. With this in mind, a study of the magnetic properties of ferrite nanoparticles with varying compositions (MFe2O4; M = Fe, Al) has been conducted to determine the magnetic responses of the various particles in order to evaluate the likelihood of using them as magnetic contrast agents in the oil and gas industry.

Nanotechnology and global energy demand: challenges and prospects for a paradigm shift in the oil and gas industry

“…Bypassed oil can easily be identified using superparamagnetic nanoparticles as a contrast agent in an oil reservoir. This allows for the accurate determination of oil saturation in a reservoir (Avendano et al 2012;Rahmani et al 2015). Furthermore, the stability of the magnetic nanoparticles in suspension under high salinity and temperature is further enhanced through surface functionalization.…”

Nanofluids as Novel Alternative Smart Fluids for Reservoir Wettability Alteration

“…Nanoparticles are categorized as magnetic (iron, cobalt etc. and the oxides) [13][14][15][16], metallic (gold, silver, copper, and Platinum) [17,18] or metal oxides (oxides of aluminum, zinc, silicon, magnesium, zirconium, cerium, titanium) [8,[19][20][21][22][23]. Among these categories, the metal oxides are the most commonly used nanoparticles in EOR [24][25][26][27][28] as the material offers special unique structures, compositions, physical, and chemical properties.…”

Improve the Process of Enhancing Oil Recovery (EOR) by Applying Nanomagnetic Cobalt Ferrite Nanoparticles

“…Magnetostrictive pressure having a negative effect, due to the external pressure would never be completely compensated by the internal pressure. The variations in the magnetic susceptibility "χ" and pressures with increasing temperature are attributed to the cations distribution between both sites of cobalt ferrite samples [12] reported the magnetic properties of ferrite nanoparticles with varying compositions like Fe, Al to determine the magnetic responses of the various particles in the oil and gas industry. Two types of nanoparticles like nano-Fe 3 O 4 and nano-AlFe 2 O 4 were used for experimental purpose.…”