Nanofluids for enhanced oil recovery processes: Wettability alteration using zirconium oxide

© 2016, Offshore Technology Conference 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 r...

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Main Authors: Nwidee, L., Al-Anssari, S., Barifcani, Ahmed, Sarmadivaleh, Mohammad, Iglauer, Stefan
Format: Conference Paper
Published: 2016
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/72385
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author Nwidee, L.
Al-Anssari, S.
Barifcani, Ahmed
Sarmadivaleh, Mohammad
Iglauer, Stefan
author_facet Nwidee, L.
Al-Anssari, S.
Barifcani, Ahmed
Sarmadivaleh, Mohammad
Iglauer, Stefan
author_sort Nwidee, L.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description © 2016, Offshore Technology Conference 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 (0-0.05 wt. %) was assessed through contact angle measurements. Results from the experiments showed ZrO2 nanofluid have great potentials in changing oil-wet limestone towards strongly water-wet condition. The best performance was observed at 0.05wt% ZrO2 nanoparticle concentration which changed an originally strongly oil-wet (152°) calcite substrate towards a strongly water-wet (44°) state thus we conclude that ZrO2 is a good agent for enhanced oil recovery.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
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last_indexed 2025-11-14T10:52:18Z
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-723852018-12-13T09:13:15Z Nanofluids for enhanced oil recovery processes: Wettability alteration using zirconium oxide Nwidee, L. Al-Anssari, S. Barifcani, Ahmed Sarmadivaleh, Mohammad Iglauer, Stefan © 2016, Offshore Technology Conference 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 (0-0.05 wt. %) was assessed through contact angle measurements. Results from the experiments showed ZrO2 nanofluid have great potentials in changing oil-wet limestone towards strongly water-wet condition. The best performance was observed at 0.05wt% ZrO2 nanoparticle concentration which changed an originally strongly oil-wet (152°) calcite substrate towards a strongly water-wet (44°) state thus we conclude that ZrO2 is a good agent for enhanced oil recovery. 2016 Conference Paper http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/72385 restricted
spellingShingle Nwidee, L.
Al-Anssari, S.
Barifcani, Ahmed
Sarmadivaleh, Mohammad
Iglauer, Stefan
Nanofluids for enhanced oil recovery processes: Wettability alteration using zirconium oxide
title Nanofluids for enhanced oil recovery processes: Wettability alteration using zirconium oxide
title_full Nanofluids for enhanced oil recovery processes: Wettability alteration using zirconium oxide
title_fullStr Nanofluids for enhanced oil recovery processes: Wettability alteration using zirconium oxide
title_full_unstemmed Nanofluids for enhanced oil recovery processes: Wettability alteration using zirconium oxide
title_short Nanofluids for enhanced oil recovery processes: Wettability alteration using zirconium oxide
title_sort nanofluids for enhanced oil recovery processes: wettability alteration using zirconium oxide
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/72385