Spontaneous imbibition of hydraulic
fracturing fluids into the
water-wet inorganic media is a ubiquitous phenomenon, which has an
important influence on tight/shale oil recovery and groundwater contamination.
However, in nanoscale space, the fluid–solid (water–wall
and oil-wall) molecular interactions, which can result in the nanoscale
effects of the slip boundary and the varying interfacial fluid viscosity,
will make the fluid flow behaviors be more complex and difficult to
characterize. In this work, a new generalized imbibition model in
inorganic nanopores and porous media is established by the theoretical
analysis and a nanoscale Shan–Chen lattice Boltzmann method
(LBM). The effects of pore dimensions and shapes in porous media,
the nanoscale effects, the dynamic contact angle, and the entrance
effect are considered and discussed. The results show that the proposed
model can accurately characterize the oil/water imbibition mechanisms
and be adapted to different nanoscale effects. Based on discussions,
this study can provide microscopic basics of water imbibing into nanopores
and provide guiding information and theoretical model for the oil
recovery from tight/shale reservoirs by hydraulic fracturing, the
groundwater remediation by restricting imbibition rate, and other
relevant applications.