Abstract
The inaccessibility of geological reservoirs, both for oil and gas production or geothermal usage, makes detection of reservoir properties and conditions a key problem in the field of reservoir engineering, including for the development of geothermal power plants. Herein, an approach is presented for the development of messenger nanoparticles for the determination of reservoir conditions, with a proof of concept example of temperature detection under controlled laboratory conditions. Silica particles are synthesized with a two-layer architecture, an inner enclosed core and an outer porous shell, each doped with a different fluorescent dye to create a dual emission system. Temperature detection happens by a threshold temperature-triggered irreversible release of the outer dye, thus changing the fluorescence signal of the particles. The reported particle system consequently enables a direct, reliable and fast way to determine reservoir temperature. It also displays a sharp threshold for accurate sensing and allows detection at concentration ranges as low as few nanograms of nanoparticles per milliliter.
Highlights
The inaccessibility of geological reservoirs, both for oil and gas production or geothermal usage, makes detection of reservoir properties and conditions a key problem in the field of reservoir engineering, including for the development of geothermal power plants
Determination of various conditions and parameters of geological reservoirs such as temperature, pH or pressure is of utmost importance, both for the assessment of the profitability of underground usage in terms of geothermal power generation or oil and gas production, as well as for the management and maintenance of running facilities[1,2]
We introduce a nanoparticle system for the detection and reporting of temperature inside geological reservoirs and test its functionality under laboratory conditions
Summary
The inaccessibility of geological reservoirs, both for oil and gas production or geothermal usage, makes detection of reservoir properties and conditions a key problem in the field of reservoir engineering, including for the development of geothermal power plants. The reported particle system enables a direct, reliable and fast way to determine reservoir temperature. It displays a sharp threshold for accurate sensing and allows detection at concentration ranges as low as few nanograms of nanoparticles per milliliter. The ratio between the reporting and the reference signals helps overcome the need to know the amount of recovered tracer and reduces the dependency on complicated measurement and simulation of reservoir properties. Fluorescent dyes were selected for the signaling/reference and reporting functions, as they can be detected at low concentrations with a high signal-to-noise ratio and are less susceptible to false detection as a result of signals emanating from other chemicals in the reservoir fluid. Fluorescence spectroscopy is fast, cheap and simple, which may prove especially advantageous for routine geothermal well real-time monitoring tasks
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