article · Journal of Polymers and the Environment
Combining polymers with nanoparticles offers a promising method for enhanced oil recovery. While earlier research primarily addressed silica, this work evaluated hydrolysed polyacrylamide combined separately with silica, alumina, and zirconia nanoparticles. Experimental assessments evaluated fluid rheology under reservoir conditions of temperature and salinity, alongside measurements of interfacial tension, wettability, and sand-pack oil recovery. Nanoparticle additions improved polymer viscosity under both thermal and saline stresses, with silica generating the highest improvements, followed by alumina and zirconia. The nanocomposites also effectively lowered oil-water interfacial tension and altered contact angles. In physical flooding tests corroborated by numerical simulations, conventional polymer recovered 8.6 percent of the original oil in place, whereas formulations with silica, alumina, and zirconia achieved recovery rates of 17.4 percent, 15.3 percent, and 13.6 percent respectively, offering useful data for expanding chemical flooding formulations beyond silica alone.
Standard polymer flooding often suffers performance losses because harsh reservoir temperatures and salinity cause the chemical fluids to degrade. Integrating nanoparticles helps maintain fluid thickness and alters surface tensions to liberate trapped hydrocarbons. Demonstrating that alumina and zirconia can also enhance recovery alongside silica provides energy operators with broader chemical options to extract remaining resources from mature petroleum reservoirs more effectively.
This applied research is relevant to upstream oil companies and oilfield chemical service providers developing enhanced oil recovery programmes. The technology currently sits at the applied laboratory stage, having demonstrated success in sand-pack core flooding and numerical modelling. Commercial use would require subsequent scale-up testing, cost-benefit analyses of the various nanoparticles, and pilot trials under actual field-scale reservoir conditions.
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Abstract Recently, the polymer-nanoparticle combination has garnered significant interest in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) due to its promising experimental results. However, the previous research was mostly directed at silica, while alumina and zirconia nanoparticles have gotten the least consideration. Unlike previous works, this study aims to investigate the influence of three NPs: Silica (SiO 2 ), Alumina (Al 2 O 3 ), and Zirconia (ZrO 2 ) on hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM). To this end, three nanocomposites were formulated: HPAM-SiO 2 , HPAM-Al 2 O 3 , and HPAM-ZrO 2 . Rheological evaluations were performed to examine the viscosity degradation of the three nanocomposites and HPAM under reservoir conditions. Furthermore, interfacial tension (IFT) at the oil–water interface and wettability studies were investigated. Moreover, sand-pack flooding was performed to examine the incremental oil recovery. The results revealed that the polymer viscosity was boosted by 110%, 45%, and 12% for HPAM-SiO 2 , HPAM-Al 2 O 3 , and HPAM-ZrO 2 respectively under the investigation range of temperature. Moreover, the polymer viscosity was improved by 73%, 48%, and 12% for HPAM-SiO 2 , HPAM-Al 2 O 3 , and HPAM-ZrO 2 respectively under the investigation range of salinity. Nanocomposites are also found to be a remarkable agent for reducing interfacial tension and changing the contact angle. The flooding experiments confirmed that the EOR by HPAM, HPAM-SiO 2 , HPAM-Al 2 O 3 , and HPAM-ZrO 2 , was 8.6%, 17.4%, 15.3%, and 13.6% of OOIP respectively. Moreover, the results of flooding experiments were well validated and matched by numerical simulation. Such findings of this work afford new insights into EOR and reinforce the promising outlook of such technique at the field scale.
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DOI: 10.1007/s10924-024-03336-z
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