Effect of Aluminum and Zinc Nanoparticles on Improving Wettability Conditions in Situ Oil Recovery in Carbonate and Sandstone Reservoirs

Abstract

The petroleum is a major source of energy of this era. With daily increase in energy demand, new methodologies are proposed to increase recovery factors in petroleum reservoirs. With increasing cumulative production and pressure drop, the wettability of reservoirs are changed to be oil-wet. Accordingly, one way to increase recovery factor from the reservoirs is to change the wettability of the reservoir rock from oil-wet to water-wet using nanoparticles. In this paper the change in relative permeability due to injection of two Nanoparticles, Zinc and Aluminum, is investigated. Two cases of vertical and horizontal wells are considered and the recovery factors are determined and compared. The tests are performed for a five spot injection-production pattern which is designed for simulation in the Eclipse software. The results indicate that of the injection of the Zinc Nanoparticle in the reservoir will lead to increase in recovery factor in a shorter period of time in comparison with the Aluminum Nanoparticle.