Nanoparticle effect on Interfacial Properties related to Enhanced Oil Recovery

This thesis takes a look at what has been done before with nanoparticles in EOR, and then experimentally investigates the effect of nanoparticles on fluid properties, in particular interfacial tension and wettability. The nanoparticles used are a new type of nanoparticles, Funzionano, developed by SINTEF Materials and Chemistry. Measurements were performed using nanofluids with two different nanoparticle concentrations, 0.5weight% and 1.0weight%, and with 5 different crude oils from Norwegian oil fields. The interfacial tension was measured using an SVT 20 spinning drop video tensiometer, and the contact angle was measured using a CAM 200 optical surface tension/contact angle meter. Results from the experiments show that addition of nanoparticles to synthetic seawater reduces both interfacial tension and contact angle, yielding the best results when using the 0.5weight% nanofluid. While there is a reduction in interfacial tension from the addition of nanoparticles, it is not enough to expect a significant change in oil recovery because of it. That being said, the results are promising and more experiments with for example different nanoparticle concentrations may yield better results