Interfacial phenomena effect on sand production due to optimized smart water with/without the presence of nanoparticles

Abstract

Historically, smart water flooding is proved as one of the methods used to enhance oil recovery from hydrocarbon reservoirs. This method has been spread due to its low cost and ease of operation, with changing the composition and concentration of salts in the water, the smart water injection leads to more excellent compatibility with rock and fluids. However, due to a large number of sandstone reservoirs in the world and the increase of the recovery factor using this high-efficiency method, a problem occurs with the continued injection of smart water into these reservoirs a phenomenon happened in which called rock leaching. Indeed, sand production is the most common problem in these fields. Rock wettability alteration toward water wetting is considered as the main cause of sand production during the smart water injection mechanism. During this process, due to stresses on the rock surface as well as disturbance of equilibrium, the sand production in the porous media takes place. In this paper, the effect of wettability alteration of oil wetted sandstones (0.005,0.01,0.02 and 0.03 molar stearic acid in normal heptane) on sand production in the presence of smart water is fully investigated. The implementation of an effective chemical method, which is nanoparticles, have been executed to prevent sand production. By stabilizing silica nanoparticles (SiO2) at an optimum concentration of 2000 ppm in smart water (pH=8) according to the results of Zeta potential and DLS test, the effect of wettability alteration of oil wetted sandstones on sand production in the presence of smart water with nanoparticles is thoroughly reviewed. Ultimately, a comparison of the results showed that nanoparticles significantly reduced sand production.