Effect of titanium oxide (TiO2) nanoparticles on reduced crude oil residue

Abstract

Over the last decade, Nanotechnology has been developed and enter in many fields especially in the oil and gas industries such as gas mobility control, sensing or imaging, enhanced oil recovery and other applications. Nanotechnology research and development in the oil and gas industries are very active and this is because of special properties of nanoparticles. The purpose of this paper is to review recent research into the effect of nanoparticles of titanium oxide (TiO2) on reduce crude oil viscosity that produce from atmospheric distillation. RCR has high viscosity and transport of it is very difficult through pipes caused many problems and financial loses so that many treatments are needed to overcome these problems. This research investigated many parameters through three pipes with different diameters (0.0127, 0.01905 and 0.0254 m) I.D., different concentrations (0.00625, 0.0125, 0.01875, 0.025 and 0.0375 (gm/L) w/v) at 50 oC and flow rate is about 50% of maximum. The results of this research: are display below:The drag reduction performance is much better in larger pipes diameter than smaller, TiO2 NP's effect on RCR viscosity and the maximum percentage of viscosity deviation is about 1.6% and addition of TiO2 NP's to RCR is reduced pressure drop, %Dr and shear stress.