In-situ heavy and extra-heavy oil recovery: A review

Improving the tribological characteristics of piston ring assembly in automotive engines using Al2O3 and TiO2 nanomaterials as nano-lubricant additives

With the ever increasing demand for energy to meet the needs of growth in population and improvement in the living standards in particular in developing countries, the abundant unconventional oil reserves (about 70% of total world oil), such as heavy oil, oil/tar sands and shale oil, are playing an increasingly important role in securing global energy supply. Compared with the conventional reserves unconventional oil reserves are characterized by extremely high viscosity and density, combined with complex chemistry. As a result, petroleum production from unconventional oil reserves is much more difficult and costly with more serious environmental impacts. As a key underpinning science, understanding the interfacial phenomena involved in unconventional petroleum production, such as oil liberation from host rocks, oil–water emulsions and demulsification, is critical for developing novel processes to improve oil production while reducing GHG emission and other environmental impacts at a lower operating cost. In the past decade, significant efforts and advances have been made in applying the principles of interfacial sciences to better understand complex unconventional oil-systems, while many environmental and production challenges remain. In this critical review, the recent research findings and progress in the interfacial sciences related to unconventional petroleum production are critically reviewed. In particular, the chemistry of unconventional oils, liberation mechanisms of oil from host rocks and mechanisms of emulsion stability and destabilization in unconventional oil production systems are discussed in detail. This review also seeks to summarize the current state-of-the-art characterization techniques and brings forward the challenges and opportunities for future research in this important field of physical chemistry and petroleum.

Interfacial sciences in unconventional petroleum production: from fundamentals to applications

Recently, researchers have proved the application of nanoparticles (NPs) for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in ambient temperature. However, to our knowledge no attempt has been undertaken experimentally to investigate the influence of NPs on EOR at higher temperatures. In this study, aluminum oxide (Al2O3), titanium dioxide (TiO2), and silicon dioxide (SiO2) were selected for EOR purposes from an intermediate-wet limestone sample at 26, 40, 50, and 60 °C. These metal NPs were dispersed in deionized water at concentration of 0.005 wt %. First, transportation of the NPs through limestone was evaluated. It was found that Al2O3 (8.2%) had the lowest and TiO2 (27.8%) and SiO2 (43.4%) had the highest adsorption on the limestone. Consequently, wettability of the limestone was changed into water-wet through NPs adsorption. The contact angle in the presence of Al2O3, TiO2, and SiO2 nanofluids was measured as 71° ± 2°, 57° ± 2°, and 26° ± 2°, respectively. Interfacial tension was also noticeably reduced with these na...

Impact of Metal Oxide Nanoparticles on Enhanced Oil Recovery from Limestone Media at Several Temperatures

The catalytic aquathermolysis becomes an important area for investigation to solve some of the problems during exploration of heavy crude oil. It has been reported in 1982 by Hyne et al. that metals can accelerate the aquathermolysis and thereafter the uses of several catalysts on this reaction have been studied. It is believed that superheated water passes heat to the hydrocarbon, and some asphaltene molecules are broken down by thermal heat to small molecules. Hence the viscosity as well as flow properties of heavy oil are improved. Moreover, the added heat provides driving force or pressure so that the viscous oils can flow easily and increases the oil production. When the catalyst is present on this reaction system, the viscosity is reduced very deeply. In general the catalysts employed for aquathermolysis are mineral, water-soluble, oil soluble, and dispersed catalyst. The viscosity reduction with these catalysts is in the order of mineral < water-soluble catalyst < oil-soluble catalyst < dispersed c...

Wei Li

Papers

Application of nano-nickel catalyst in the viscosity reduction of Liaohe extra-heavy oil by aqua-thermolysis