Performance evaluation of titanate nano structures on enhancement of oil recovery

Abstract

As global energy consumption increases, there is an increasing desire to investigate nanotechnology-based approaches for enhancing oil recovery. Integrating nanostructures has shown an augmentation in the rate of crude oil recovery. This study used Iraqi crude oil obtained from well-known fields in Basra, such as Majnoon, Zubair1, North Rumaila, Nahran Omar, and West Qurna1, which feature unique attributes. Titanate nanoparticles (TiNP) and titanate nanotubes (TiNT) were employed as additives to enhance various properties of Iraqi heavy crude oil, including viscosity, API, specific gravity, surface tension, and interfacial tension. These additives were used either as enhancers or for advanced treatment purposes. The research examined the influence of various concentrations of nanoparticles (ranging from 0.01 to 0.1 wt%) on the efficiency of systems developed for crude oil characteristics. TiNT exhibited outstanding performance in the face of a 37% fall in the viscosity of Majnoon crude oil, surpassing the performance of other fields to a greater extent. The surface tension of Zubair1, North Rumaila, Nahran Omar, and West Qurna1 fields fell by 15.5%, 14.5%, 15.1%, 18.6%, and 15.7%, respectively. Similarly, the addition of 0.1 wt% of TiNT resulted in reductions of 26.07%, 19.7%, 23.4%, 23.6%, and 19.6% for the aforementioned areas. The impact of TiNT on IFT was reduced by up to 22.3%. However, TiNP demonstrated more efficacy than TiNT in decreasing the specific gravity by 4.3% in crude oil from the Majnoon field. The inclusion of titanate nanostructures resulted in the following API values: 23.5%, 19.5%, 17%, 22.4%, and 21.2% with TiNP; and 15.15%, 14.8, 15.4%, 15.6%, and 8.2% with TiNT at a concentration of 0.1 wt%.