Effect of Silica Nanoparticles on Wettability of Oil-Wet Surfaces
Abstract
The effect of silica nanoparticles and brine salinity variation on the wettability alteration of oil-wet surfaces was investigated in this paper. The rock and fluids of Kolo oilfield in Nigeria were used as case study and five brine salinities and two nanoparticles’ concentrations were investigated. The contact angle and Amott wettability index methods were used to investigate the wettability alteration potential of silica nanoparticles on oil-wet surfaces and intact core plugs, respectively. The results of the contact angle tests showed that the use of 1 g/L and 5 g/L silica nanoparticles reduced the oil-wet surface’s angle from 79o to 73o and 71o respectively in aqueous solution. Lower contact angles were however observed with the use of brines of different salinities with the lowest angles (69o and 68o ) being obtained with lowest salinity brine (90D). Which shows that the nanoparticles have the tendency to modify oil-wet surfaces towards waterwet condition irrespective of the brine salinities. Also, wettability alteration towards increasing water-wetness was observed with decrease in brine salinities and increase in the concentrations of the nanoparticles. Finally, the results of the Amott wettability index to water show that the application of nanoparticles modifies the intact rock wettability towards water-wet condition and higher oil production was observed with the spontaneous imbibition of nanofluid with 0.25 wettability index relative to that of the formation brine that was 0.1. The sediments of nanoparticles were however observed on top the rock core and at the base of the cell during the spontaneous imbibition process. This work presents experimental study on the wettability alteration potential of the application of silica nanoparticles in Kolo oilfield reservoir rock and fluids. The study presented in this paper is relevant to the design and implementation of nanoparticles enhanced oil recovery process.UnfundeSimilar works
This paper was published in ChesterRep.
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