The enhancement in surfactant performance at downhole
conditions
in the presence of nanomaterials has fascinated researchers’
interest regarding the applications of nanoparticle-surfactant (NPS)
fluids as novel enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques. However, the
governing EOR mechanisms of hydrocarbon recovery using NPS solutions
are not yet explicit. Pore-scale visualization experiments clarify
the dominant EOR mechanisms of fluid displacement and trapped/residual
oil mobilization using NPS solutions. In this study, the influence
of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), silicon dioxide (SiO2), and aluminum oxide (Al2O3) nanoparticles
on the EOR properties of a conventional surfactant (sodium dodecyl
benzene sulfonate, SDBS) was investigated via experimental and computational
fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation approaches. Oil recovery was reduced
with increased temperatures and micromodel heterogeneity. Adding nanoparticles
to SDBS solutions decreases the fingering and channeling effect and
increases the recovery factor. The simulation prediction results agreed
with the experimental results, which demonstrated that the lowest
amount of oil (37.84%) was retained with the micromodel after MWCNT-SDBS
flooding. The oil within the micromodel after Al2O3-SDBS and SiO2-SDBS flooding was 58.48 and 43.42%,
respectively. At 80 °C, the breakthrough times for MWCNT-SDBS,
Al2O3-SDBS, and SiO2-SDBS displacing
fluids were predicted as 32.4, 29.3, and 21 h, respectively, whereas
the SDBS flooding and water injections at similar situations were
at 12.2 and 6.9 h, respectively. The higher oil recovery and breakthrough
time with MWCNTs could be attributed to their cylindrical shape, promoting
the MWCNT-SDBS orientation at the liquid–liquid and solid–liquid
interfaces to reduce the oil–water interfacial tension and
contact angles significantly. The study highlights the prevailing
EOR mechanisms of NPS.