Luky Hendraningrat

Metal oxide-based nanoparticles: revealing their potential to enhance oil recovery in different wettability systems

This paper presents systematic studies of hydrophilic metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) dispersed in brine intended to reveal their potential to enhance oil recovery (EOR) in various rock wettability systems. The stability in suspension (nanofluid) of the NPs has been identified as a key factor related to their use as an EOR agent. Experimental techniques have been developed for nanofluid stability using three coupled methods: direct visual observation, surface conductivity and particle size measurements. The use of a dispersant has been investigated and has been shown to successfully improve metal oxide nanofluid stability as a function of its concentration. The dispersant alters the nanofluid properties, i.e. surface conductivity, pH and particle size distribution. A two-phase coreflood experiment was conducted by injecting the stable nanofluids as a tertiary process (nano-EOR) through core plugs with various wettabilities ranging from water-wet to oil-wet. The combination of metal oxide nanofluid and dispersant improved the oil recovery to a greater extent than either silica-based nanofluid or dispersant alone in all wettability systems. The contact angle, interfacial tension (IFT) and effluent were also measured. It was observed that metal oxide-based nanofluids altered the quartz plates to become more water-wet, and the results are consistent with those of the coreflood experiment. The particle adsorption during the transport process was identified from effluent analysis. The presence of NPs and dispersant reduced the IFT, but its reduction is sufficient to yield significant additional oil recovery. Hence, wettability alteration plays a dominant role in the oil displacement mechanism using nano-EOR.

A review on applications of nanotechnology in the enhanced oil recovery part B: effects of nanoparticles on flooding

AbstractChemical flooding is of increasing interest and importance due to high oil prices and the need to increase oil production. Research in nanotechnology in the petroleum industry is advancing rapidly, and an enormous progress in the application of nanotechnology in this area is to be expected. The nanotechnology has been widely used in several other industries, and the interest in the oil industry is increasing. Nanotechnology has the potential to profoundly change enhanced oil recovery and to improve mechanism of recovery, and it is chosen as an alternative method to unlock the remaining oil resources and applied as a new enhanced oil recovery method in last decade. This paper therefore focuses on the reviews of the application of nanotechnology in chemical flooding process in oil recovery and reviews the applications of nanomaterials for improving oil recovery that have been proposed to explain oil displacement by polymer flooding within oil reservoirs, and also this paper highlights the research advances of polymer in oil recovery. Nanochemical flooding is an immature method from an application point of view.

Improved Oil Recovery by Hydrophilic Silica Nanoparticles Suspension: 2 Phase Flow Experimental Studies

In last decade, a number of papers about nanoparticles studies have been published related to its benefit for oil and gas industries. Some of them discussed about the potential of nanoparticles for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in the laboratory scale. One of possible EOR mechanisms of nanofluids has been described as disjoining pressure gradient (Chengara, 2004, and Wasan, 2011). The benefit of using silica nanoparticles was explained by Miranda (2012). Hence, the present study objective is to investigate the potential of hydrophilic silica nanoparticles suspension as enhanced oil recovery agent and find out the main mechanisms of nanofluids for EOR. In this study, hydrophilic nanoparticles with average particle size of 7 nm were used in both visualization glass micromodel flooding experiments and core flooding experiments. A water-wet transparent glass micromodel and Berea sandstone cores with 300-400 mD permeability were used as porous medium. Synthetic brine was used as disperse fluid for nanoparticles. In order to investigate the recovery mechanisms of nanofluids, interfacial tension (IFT) and contact angle between different concentration nanofluids and crude oil have been measured by using spinning drop and pendent drop methods. The experimental results indicate that the nanofluids can reduce the IFT between water phase and oil phase and make the solid surface more water wet. In the visualization glass micromodel flooding experiments, it was observed that nanofluids can release oil drops trapped by capillary pressure, while the high concentration nanofluids stabilized oil-water emulsion. For the core flooding experiments, nanofluids can increase recovery about 4-5% compared to brine flooding. These results indicate that these nanoparticles are potential EOR agents. The future expectation is that nanoparticles could mobilize more oil in the pore network at field scale to improve oil recovery.

A review on applications of nanotechnology in the enhanced oil recovery part A: effects of nanoparticles on interfacial tension

Chemical enhanced oil recovery is another strong growing technology with the potential of a step change innovation, which will help to secure future oil supply by turning resources into reserves. While Substantial amount of crude oil remains in the reservoir after primary and secondary production, conventional production methods give access to on average only one-third of original oil in place, the use of surfactants and polymers allows for recovery of up to another third of this oil. Chemical flooding is of increasing interest and importance due to high oil prices and the need to increase oil production. Research in nanotechnology in the petroleum industry is advancing rapidly and an enormous progress in the application of nanotechnology in this area is to be expected. Nanotechnology has the potential to profoundly change enhanced oil recovery and to improve mechanism of recovery. This paper, therefore, focuses on the reviews of the application of nano technology in chemical flooding process in oil recovery and reviews the application nano in the polymer and surfactant flooding on the interfacial tension process.

Experimental Investigation of Decalin and Metal Nanoparticles-Assisted Bitumen Upgrading During Catalytic Aquathermolysis

Unconventional oil reservoirs such as heavy oil, extra heavy oil, oil shale and oil sand/bitumen are very interesting since these kinds of oil are currently proven to constitute a huge amount of total world oil reserves. However, it is difficult to handle these kinds of oil due to very high viscosity. Thermal application methods may have great possibilities for heavy oil and bitumen production. Prior to shipment to downstream markets, the bitumen needs to be upgraded to produce higher value of liquid hydrocarbon products. However, the issues in oil sands industry are environmental challenges such as green-house-gas (ghg) emission, huge amount of fuel and water consumption, liquid and solid wastes disposal. The objective of this study is to investigate an effective and efficient upgrading process by adding decalin as hydrogen donor, water and various type nanometal particles (40-500 nm) as catalysts into Athabasca bitumen. Athabasca bitumen has been successfully upgraded by reducing its viscosity about 80% (measured at 60 oC) by applying catalytic aquathermolysis at 240 oC during 12 hours. As hydrogen donor, decalin is very interesting. Besides cheap, it could dramatically accelerate viscosity reduction with concentration of 5 wt.%. The degree of viscosity reduction will increase with increased decalin concentration. However degree of bitumen upgrading will decrease with presence of water. It seems that synergetic effects to the upgrading process did not work effectively. Hence water consumption during aquathermolysis process might be reduced to minimize the cost. Since earlier studies have shown that nanoparticles may reduce heavy oil viscosity, four types of nanometal particles have been studied and some of them accelerated viscosity reduction during catalytic aquathermolysis process at particular concentration. Improper nanometal particle type and concentration are reversed effect. Temperature and heating time have vital role in the upgrading process.

A study of water chemistry extends the benefits of using silica-based nanoparticles on enhanced oil recovery

Chemistry of the injected water has been investigated as an important parameter to improve/enhance oil recovery (IOR/EOR). Numerous extensive experiments have observed that water chemistry, such as ionic composition and salinity, can be modified for IOR/EOR purposes. However, the possible oil displacement mechanism remains debatable. Nanoparticle recently becomes more popular that have shown a great potential for IOR/EOR purposes in lab-scale, where in most experiments, water-based fluid were used as dispersed fluid. As yet, there has been no discussion in the literature on the study of water chemistry on enhanced oil recovery using silica-based nanoparticles. A broad range of laboratory studies involving rock, nanoparticles and fluid characterization; fluid–fluid and fluid-rock interactions; surface conductivity measurement; coreflood experiment; injection strategy formulation; filtration mechanism and contact angle measurement are conducted to investigate the impact of water chemistry, such as water salinity and ionic composition including hardness cations, on the performance of silica-based nanoparticles in IOR/EOR process and reveal possible displacement mechanism. The experimental results demonstrated that water salinity and ionic composition significantly impacted oil recovery using hydrophilic silica-based nanoparticles and that the oil recovery increased with the salinity. The primary findings from this study are that the water salinity, the ionic composition and the injection strategy are important parameters to be considered in Nano-EOR.

Polymeric nanospheres as a displacement fluid in enhanced oil recovery

This paper presents the investigation of using nanoscale polyacrylamide-based spheres (nanospheres) as a displacement fluid in enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Coreflood experiments were conducted to evaluate the impact of nanospheres and its concentration dispersed in model formation water on oil recovery during a tertiary oil recovery process. The coreflood results showed that nanospheres can enhance residual oil recovery in the sandstone rock samples and its concentration showed a significant impact into incremental oil. By evaluating the contact angle, it was observed that wettability alteration also might be involved in the possible oil displacement mechanism in this process together with fluid behavior and permeability to water that might divert injected fluid into unswept oil areas and enhance the residual oil recovery. These investigations promote nanospheres aqueous disperse solution as a potential displacement fluid in EOR.