Measuring Interfacial Tension Between Oil and Nano-Saline Solutions in the Presence of SiO2 or TiO2 at Low and Intermediate Pressures

In this paper, SiO2 and/or TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) were used to enhance the performance of water injection process and so increasing oil recovery. To this end, several nano saline solutions were prepared from each of these salt compounds: NaCl or CaSO4 or MgSO4 (1000 ppm) together with different concentrations of SiO2 and/or TiO2 NPs from 0.01 to 0.07 wt.%. Interfacial tensions (IFT) between the oil collected from Sarvestan oil reservoir and the saline solutions were measured at low and intermediate pressures, i.e. 14.5, 72.5, 145, 217.5, 290, 362.5, 435, 507.5 and 1160 Psi using a homemade IFT-device. Results showed that SiO2 and/or TiO2 NPs successfully reduced the interfacial tension between the oil and the saline solutions with a maximum reduction of 63.95 % and 63.46 % for 0.05 wt.% of SiO2 in the MgSO4- H2O solution and 0.05 wt.% of TiO2 in the CaSO4- H2O solution, respectively, at the pressure of 507.5 Psi. The maximum IFT reduction of NaCl- H2O-TiO2, NaCl- H2O-SiO2, MgSO4- H2O-TiO2 and CaSO4- H2O- SiO2 solutions was found to be 58.13 %, 49.65 %, 36.18 % and 20.88 %, respectively.