The Application of Nanoparticles in Enhancing Oil Recovery by Wettability Alteration

Abstract

Wettability is one of most important characteristics for governing the flow and distribution of reservoir fluids in the porous media,the wetting and spreading behavior of liquids on the solid surfaces changes if the wettability of solid surface is altered. Recent studies show the spreading behavior of liquids on solid surface can be significantly improved after nanofluid treatment. In order to investigate the influence of wettability alternation on enhancing oil recovery after nanofluid treatment,flushing oil experiment and contact angle measurement were conducted in the laboratory. The first experiment involved flushing crude oil with the nanofluid and conventional surfactants, respectively. In the second case, the contact angles of oil phase in nanofluid (conventional surfactant solutions)-crude oil-slide systems were measured after treating 36 hours. The results indicated that nanofluid can produce a better flushing efficiency compared with that of conventional surfactant, and the contact angles of oil phase increased from 33° to 118° after nanofluid treatment in nanofluid/crude-oil/slide system. The mechanism of enhanced oil recovery of nanofluid is mainly wettability alternation.