Comparison study of silica and iron oxide nanoparticles as enhanced oil recovery agents

Abstract

Fossil fuel has been the primary energy supply compared to other alternative energy sources. Due to economic constraints, locating new reserves becomes harder. Approximately 35 % of the original oil in place can be retrieved from the reservoir by primary and secondary methods, while the rest remained trapped, in the last decade nanoparticles have been considered as an alternative recovery method to boost the oil recovery process and to extract trapped oil. The purpose of this study is to compare the effect of silica (SiO2) and iron oxide (Fe3O4) nanoparticles for their recovery mechanism, the parameters involved in this study include, interfacial tension measurement using tensiometer, wettability alteration using contact angle method, and flooding using glass bead pack model. Silica (SiO2) and iron oxide Fe3O4 with the concentration of (0.02-0.1) wt.% was prepared using deionized water, Sodium chloride (NaCl) as brine with the concentration of (0.7wt% - 2.2wt) has been used. The interfacial tension result showed for silica SiO2 and iron oxide (Fe3O4) 43% and 33% reduction of IFT with an optimum concentration of 0.05 wt.% and 0.1 wt.% respectively. For the contact angle measurement, both silica SiO2 and iron oxide (Fe3O4) nanoparticles alter the oil-wet system to the water-wet system by reducing contact angle 19% and 18% respectively. Finally, the additional oil recovery for SiO2 and (Fe3O4) was 10.7% and 9.8% respectively. This study concludes silica SiO2 nanofluids are more effective on that brine concentration for an enhanced oil recovery application.