Micro- and macroscopic experiments on self-adaptive mobility control and displacement efficiency of carbon-based composite nano fluid for enhanced oil recovery

Abstract

Reservoir heterogeneity, unfavorable water e oil mobility ratio, and high oil-water interface energy are primary constraints impeding macroscopic sweep and microscopic oil displacement efficiencies of water flooding reservoirs. Nano fluid's unique interface and small-scale effects offer significant potential in solving the low-universal problem of water flooding reservoir recovery. In the study, systematic micro- and macroscopic experiments, including microscopic visualization, core flooding, and nuclear magnetic resonance online flooding experiments, to reveal unique self-adaptive mobility control and superior displacement efficiency of amphiphilic graphene oxide (GOC)-based composite nano fluid. The results indicate that GOC nanosheets exert negative curvature at the oil-water interface, forming water-in-oil Pickering emulsion thermodynamically. These Pickering emulsions exhibit remarkable properties, with up to 90% internal phase volume and higher viscosity than oil across a broad water saturation, signifying GOC's self-adaptive mobility control in porous media. Furthermore, the Jiamin effect and in-situ thickening characteristics from the emulsion's micro-size compensate porous media heterogeneity, significantly improving the GOC nano fluid's macroscopic sweep efficiency. Moreover, a slight surfactant addition to the nano fluid further reduces oil-water interfacial tension to 10⁻² mN/m and regulates the rock surface's hydrophilic wettability, notably improving microscopic oil displacement efficiency. Therefore, the remaining oil and residual oil after brine flooding have been effectively utilized and efficiently displaced. The composite nano fluid with 0.3 e 0.7 pore volumes enhances oil recovery by 15.8% e 37.7% after ultimate brine flooding. Moreover, carbon-based nanomaterials' synthesis is eco-friendly, and both carbon-based composite nano fluid preparation and the injection process are simple. These advantages show nano-technology's excellent industrial application potential in improving oil recovery efficiency.

Keywords

Composite nano fluid / Water-in-oil Pickering emulsion / Self-adaptive mobility control / High displacement efficiency

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Rui Liu: Writing-review & editing, Writing-original draft, Methodology, Formal analysis, Conceptualization. Jie Deng: Writing-review & editing, Writing-original draft, Investigation, Data curation. Wanfen Pu: Validation. Yue Li: Methodology, Conceptualization. Yuanyuan Lu: Writing-original draft, Methodology, Conceptualization. Binyang Zou: Methodology, Conceptualization. M.A. Varfolomeev: Methodology, Conceptualization. Chengdong Yuan: Methodology, Conceptualization.

Declaration of competing interest

No conflict of interest exits in the submission of this manuscript, and all authors for publication approve manuscript. I would like to declare on behalf of my co-authors that the work described was original research that has not been published previously, and not under consideration for publication elsewhere, in whole or in part. All the authors listed have approved the manuscript that is enclosed.

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42172347) and Distinguished Youth Foundation of Sichuan Scientific Committee (Grant No. 2024NSFJQ0028) for providing financial supports of this study.

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