Recent advances in application of nanotechnology in chemical enhanced oil recovery: Effects of nanoparticles on wettability alteration, interfacial tension reduction, and flooding

Chemical methods of enhanced oil recovery (CEOR) are applied for improving oil recovery from different kinds of oil reservoirs due to their ability for modifying some crucial parameters in porous media, such as mobility ratio (M), wettability, spreading behavior of chemical solutions on rock surface and the interfacial tension (IFT) between water and oil. Few decades ago, the surfactant and polymer flooding were the most common CEOR methods have been applied for producing the remained hydrocarbon after primary and secondary recovery techniques. Recently, more attention has been focused on the potential applications of the nanotechnology in enhanced oil recovery (EOR). For this purpose, many studies reported that nanoparticles (NPs) have promising roles in CEOR processes due to their ability in changing oil recovery mechanisms and unlocking the trapped oil in the reservoir pore system. This paper presents a comprehensive and up-to-date review of the latest studies about various applications of nanoparticles (NPs) within the surfactant (S), polymer (P), surfactant-polymer (SP), alkaline-surfactant-polymer (ASP) and low salinity waterflooding processes, which exhibits the way for researchers who are interested in investigating this technology. The review covers the effects of nanoparticles on wettability alteration, interfacial tension reduction and oil recovery improvement, and discusses the factors affecting the rock/fluid interaction behavior in porous media through the nanofluid flooding.