Page 232 - Formation Damage during Improved Oil Recovery Fundamentals and Applications

206 Bin Yuan and Rouzbeh G. Moghanloo

Figure 4.17 Comparison of inlet-outlet pressure drop for low-salinity waterflooding
with different nanofluid treatment radius (Yuan et al., 2018b).

4.7 CONCLUSIONS

This chapter describes both theoretical and experimental works
conducted to address the issues of nanofluid utilization to control fines
migration in porous media. The key conclusions based on the results of
this work are as follows:
• The important parameters pertinent to transport and capture of nano-
particles are characterized, i.e., the maximum adsorption concentrations,
reversible or detachment adsorption concentrations, nanoparticles
adsorption and straining rates, and formation damage coefficients.
• The mutual reactions among fines, nanoparticles, and rock grains are
established to explain the reasons why nanoparticles can help mitigate
fines migration and formation damage. MI is compared to reveal and
explain the better controlling performance of nanoparticles pretreat-
ment compared to coinjection of fines and nanoparticles.
• The combined applications of the splitting method and stream function
with Method of Characteristic provide exact solutions of nanoparticles
utilization to control fines migration in two-phase water and oil flow.
The effects of fines migration and nanoparticles effects on the perfor-
mance of waterflooding are quantified using changes of pressure drop,
oil bank, front-saturation, and the breakthrough time of injected fluids.