Page 204 - Formation Damage during Improved Oil Recovery Fundamentals and Applications

178 Bin Yuan and Rouzbeh G. Moghanloo

The types of nanoparticles involved mainly include Al 2 O 3 ,MgO,ZrO 2 ,
CeO 2 ,TiO 2 ,SiO 2 ,ZnO, and Fe 2 O 3 . Song and Marcus (2007) proposed
hyperpolarized silicon nanoparticles for taking images of hydrocarbon
reserves. Nanosensor and nanoidentification techniques were proposed to
identify the physical and chemical properties, and mechanical characteristics
of both fluids and rocks (Jahagirdar, 2008; Abousleiman et al., 2009;
Kapusta et al., 2011; Berlin et al., 2011). Nanoparticles are now also used
as additives in drilling and completion fluids for clay stabilization
(McDonald, 2012), fluid-loss control (Huang et al., 2008; Contreras et al.,
2014), viscosity alternation (Gurluk et al., 2013), wellbore stability (Zhang
et al., 2015), decrease of drag and torque friction (Sharma et al., 2012),
cementation (Van Zanten et al., 2010; Santra et al., 2012; Pang et al.,
2014). Moreover, nanofluids have been extensively applied to enhance oil
recovery through multiple mechanisms, including wettability alteration
(Crews and Gomaa, 2012; Li et al., 2013, 2014), interfacial tension (IFT)
reduction (Moghadam and Azizian, 2014), enhancing emulsion and foam
stability (Adkins et al., 2007; Gonzenbach et al., 2007; Aminzadeh et al.,
2012; Prigiobbe et al., 2016), and channels plugging (Ju et al., 2006, 2009;
Ogoloetal., 2012).
Various approaches have been developed to control formation fines
migration and to remove the formation damage caused by formation fines
plugging in the near-wellbore region. A variety of special-designed clay-
control agents have been applied to minimize the damage effects of fines
migration in high clay-content wells (Jaramilloetal.,2010). Different
organic & inorganic acid systems were developed to remove the formation
fines that plugged reservoir pores, gravel packs, and sand control screens
under different downhole conditions (Hibbeler et al., 2003, Huang et al.,
2002). Recently, the introduction of nanoparticles to control fines migration
were proposed (Huang et al., 2008; Ahmadi et al., 2011; Assef et al., 2014;
Yuan et al., 2015; Yuan and Moghanloo, 2016). Laboratory experiments
have confirmed that nanoparticles with extremely high surface areas are suit-
able to fixate mobile fines by decreasing the double-layer repulsive forces
between fine particles and rock grains effectively (Huangetal.,2008). Yuan
et al. (2015, 2017a,b,c,d) presented a series of analytical solutions to charac-
terize nanoparticle/fines migration in porous media saturated with only sin-
gle-phase water and quantified the positive contributions of nanoparticles
treatment (both pre-flush and co-injection) in mitigating problems of fines
migration. Followed by, Yuan et al. (2018a,b,c) further developed a mobil-
ity-control method attributed to the alteration of water-phase permeability
caused by fines migration & plugging, and also introduced the nanofluid-
slug treatment to enhance the injectivity of low-salinity water.