Changing oil-wet surfaces toward higher water wettability is of key importance in subsurface engineering applications. This includes petroleum recovery from fractured limestone reservoirs, which are typically mixed or oil-wet, resulting in poor productivity as conventional waterflooding techniques are inefficient. A wettability change toward more water-wet would significantly improve oil displacement efficiency, and thus productivity. Another area where such a wettability shift would be highly beneficial is carbon geo-sequestration, where compressed CO2 is pumped underground for storage. It has recently been identified that more water-wet formations can store more CO2. We thus examined how silica based nanofluids can induce such a wettabil

Nanofluids, liquid suspensions of nanoparticles (Np), are an effective agent to alter the wettability of oil-wet reservoirs to water-wet thus promoting hydrocarbon recovery. It can also have an application to more efficient carbon storage. We present a series of contact angle (θ) investigations on initially oil-wet calcite surfaces to quantify the performance of hydrophilic silica nanoparticles for wettability alteration. These tests are conducted at typical in-situ high pressure (CO2), temperature and salinity conditions. A high pressure–temperature (P/T) optical cell with a regulated tilted surface was used to measure the advancing and receding contact angles at the desired conditions. The results showed that silica nanofluids can alte

Nanofluids, liquid suspensions of nanoparticles (NPs) dispersed in deionized (DI) water, brine, or surfactant micelles, have become a promising solution for many industrial applications including enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and carbon geostorage. At ambient conditions, nanoparticles can effectively alter the wettability of the strongly oil-wet rocks to water-wet. However, the reservoir conditions present the greatest challenge for the success of this application at the field scale. In this work, the performance of anionic surfactant-silica nanoparticle formulation on wettability alteration of oil-wet carbonate surface at reservoir conditions was investigated. A high-pressure temperature vessel was used to apply nano-modification of oil-wet

Ultimate oil recovery and displacement efficiency at the pore-scale are controlled by the rock wettability thus there is a growing interest in the wetting behaviour of reservoir rocks as production from fractured oil-wet or mixed-wet limestone formations have remained a key challenge. Conventional waterflooding methods are inefficient in such formation due to poor spontaneous imbibition of water into the oil-wet rock capillaries. However, altering the wettability to water-wet could yield recovery of significant amounts of additional oil thus this study investigates the influence of nanoparticles on wettability alteration. The efficiency of various formulated zirconium-oxide (ZrO2) based nanofluids at different nanoparticle concentrations (0

Naturally carbonate reservoirs have very low oil recovery efficiency owing to their wettability and tightness of matrix. However, adding surfactant to brine solution can enhance oil recovery by changing the wettability of the carbonate rock surface from oil-wet to water-wet. In the present study, the effects of different brines in the presence of surfactant hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), on the wettability of carbonate rock were investigated through different characteristics such as surface tension interfacial tension and contact angle. The best concentration of CTAB was investigated at 500 ppm in brine (NaCl) reduced surface tension and interfacial tensions to 42 mN/m and 15 mN/m respectively and prevented reservoir fro

One of the most important problems in the oil production process and when its continuous flow, is emulsified oil (w/o emulsion), which in turn causes many problems, from the production line to the extended pipelines that are then transported to the oil refining process. It was observed that the nanomaterial (SiO₂) supported the separation process by adding it to the emulsion sample and showed a high separation rate with the demulsifiers (RB6000) and (sebamax) where the percentage of separation was greater than (90 and 80 )%  respectively, and less than that when dealing with (Sodium dodecyl sulfate and Diethylene glycol), the percentage of separation was (60% and 50%) respectively.

   The high proportion

In this paper, SiO2 nanoparticles thin films were synthesised at different PH values of solution by sol gel method at fixed temperature (25oC) and molar ratio (R =H2O/precursor) of (Tetra Ethyl Ortho Silicate) TEOS as precursor at (R=1). The structure and optical properties of the thin films have been investigated. All thin films were tested by using X-RAY diffraction. All X-RAY spectrum can be indexed as monoclinic structure with strong crystalline (110) plane. The morphological properties of the prepared films were studied by SEM. The results indicate that all films are in nano scale and the particle size around (19-62) nm .The size of silica particles increases with increasing PH value of solution where both the rate of hydrolysis and

   The petroleum industry faces a significant problem in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) from carbonate reservoirs because of their mostly oil-wet character, which restricts hydrocarbon extraction. To better understand how surfactant-polymer techniques can enhance oil recovery, this study investigates the effectiveness of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a stand-alone agent and the function of ionically modified smart water on carbonate properties. The study focuses on its effect on critical parameters essential for effective oil displacement and recovery, such as wettability alteration, interfacial tension, and surface tension (ST) using different brines (smart water). The ability of the polymer PVA to lower interfacial and surface tensi