Experimental Study of Nanoparticle Injection for Enhanced Oil Recovery

Abstract

The potential of a total of 13 nanofluids with 0.1% by weight nanoparticles in them are tested for EOR capabilities in this work. The nanoparticles used in the nanofluids are mostly silica based particles with different types of surface modifications and two of them are polymers. Nine nanofluids are tested by secondary recovery coreflooding in water-wet rock and the four best performing ones and two other nanofluids are tested by coreflooding in core plugs that have been aged in crude oil to render them less water-wet. The nanofluids used for coreflooding in the aged core plugs are tested for both secondary and tertiary recovery potential. All the tests were performed in ambient conditions.

The results showed that some of the nanofluids performed much better than others, and in neutral-wet core plugs much better than synthetic sea water. Often the same nanofluids were among the best performing both during secondary and tertiary recovery stages. Evidence of both log jamming, structural disjoining pressure and better sweep efficiency were found.