Insight into the stability of hydrophilic silica nanoparticles in seawater for Enhanced oil recovery implications

Abstract

The stability of nanoparticles in the aqueous phase is a major challenge in the application of nanoparticles in Enhanced Oil Recovery (Nano-EOR) processes. Previous studies evaluated the performance of nanoparticles for EOR purposes; either deionized water or water at very low ionic strength was used. Nanoparticles can be easily dispersed in the deionized or low salinity water, whereas they are extremely unstable in high salinity seawater or formation water. Typically, seawater or formation brine is injected for water-flooding and EOR purposes. If we want to change the fluid–fluid or fluid-rock properties by injecting nanoparticle enhanced water, then, the stability of the nanoparticles in high salinity water is extremely important. In this work, a novel and simple method to stabilize silica nanoparticles in seawater is proposed. First, the aggregation of silica nanoparticles in the presence of different ions is investigated. The results show that the presence of positive multivalent ions in the electrical double layer around nanoparticles can destabilize silica nanoparticles. In order to reduce the concentration of positive multivalent ions around silica nanoparticles, a theory based on “H+ protection” is proposed and its effectiveness is tested by particle size, turbidity, zeta-potential, and pH measurements. The effect of the concentrations of nanoparticles and HCl on the stability of silica nanoparticles in seawater is evaluated. Experimental results show that H+ protection, which can be obtained by adding HCl to the solution, can effectively stabilize silica nanoparticles in seawater. The experiments show that the size of nanoparticles in the seawater directly depends on the concentration of nanoparticles and inversely to the HCl concentration.