Nourinia Ahmad, Manshad Abbas Khaksar, Shadizadeh Seyed Reza, Ali Jagar A, Iglauer Stefan, Keshavarz Alireza, Mohammadi Amir H, Ali Muhammad
Department of Petroleum Engineering, Abadan Faculty of Petroleum, Petroleum University of Technology (PUT), Abadan 6318714331, Iran.
Department of Petroleum Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Soran University, Soran, Kurdistan Region 44008, Iraq.
ACS Omega. 2022 Jul 15;7(29):24951-24972. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.1c07182. eCollection 2022 Jul 26.
Oil production faces challenges such as limited oil production from carbonate reservoirs, high oil production costs, and environmental issues. Chemical flooding as an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method (CEOR) can increase oil production by the use of chemical additives such as surfactants into the reservoirs. Surfactants can increase oil recovery by interfacial tension (IFT) reduction and alteration of the rock wettability from oil-wet to water-wet. The synthesis of chemicals such as synthetic surfactants is usually costly and harmful to the environment. To solve these problems, many researchers have oriented on the use of natural surfactants instead of synthetic ones within the CEOR process. A new approach to increase the efficiency of CEOR is the synergizing of the chemical additives with nanoparticles as a hybrid fluid, which is known as the nanotechnology-assisted EOR method. In this research, a natural surfactant derived from (CP) plant was extracted, and its performance was optimized with the zinc oxide/montmorillonite (ZnO/MMT) nanocomposite in a synergistic usage. At the optimum concentration of the surfactant, the measurements of the IFT and the contact angle show 57.78 and 61.58% optimizations, respectively. Also, in the presence of NaCl, the performance of CP is improved. IFT and contact angle measurements were also conducted for ZnO/MMT nanofluids and CP-ZnO/MMT as hybrid nanofluids. Results indicate that ZnO/MMT nanocomposites can alter the wettability of the carbonate rock to the water-wet state. Also, the CP-ZnO/MMT hybrid nanofluid shows a good potential in both IFT reduction and altering wettability from oil-wet to water-wet. Finally, to investigate the effects of solutions on increasing oil recovery factor (RF), the optimum concentrations of the surfactant, nanocomposite, and hybrid solutions were selected for dynamic core flooding experiments, and improvements showed oil RF increases of 8.2, 6, and 13%, respectively.
石油生产面临诸多挑战，如碳酸盐岩油藏产油量有限、生产成本高以及环境问题。化学驱油作为一种强化采油（EOR）方法（化学强化采油，CEOR），可通过向油藏中注入表面活性剂等化学添加剂来提高产油量。表面活性剂可通过降低界面张力（IFT）以及将岩石润湿性从亲油转变为亲水来提高采收率。合成表面活性剂等化学品的合成通常成本高昂且对环境有害。为解决这些问题，许多研究人员在化学强化采油过程中倾向于使用天然表面活性剂而非合成表面活性剂。提高化学强化采油效率的一种新方法是将化学添加剂与纳米颗粒协同作为混合流体，这被称为纳米技术辅助强化采油方法。在本研究中，从（CP）植物中提取了一种天然表面活性剂，并将其与氧化锌/蒙脱石（ZnO/MMT）纳米复合材料协同使用以优化其性能。在表面活性剂的最佳浓度下，IFT和接触角的测量结果分别显示优化了57.78%和61.58%。此外，在氯化钠存在的情况下，CP的性能得到改善。还对ZnO/MMT纳米流体和CP-ZnO/MMT混合纳米流体进行了IFT和接触角测量。结果表明，ZnO/MMT纳米复合材料可将碳酸盐岩的润湿性改变为亲水状态。此外，CP-ZnO/MMT混合纳米流体在降低IFT以及将润湿性从亲油转变为亲水方面均显示出良好潜力。最后，为研究溶液对提高采油率（RF）的影响，选择了表面活性剂、纳米复合材料和混合溶液的最佳浓度进行动态岩心驱替实验，结果表明采油率分别提高了8.2%、6%和13%。
