Numerical Investigation of oil recovery due to nanofluid injection into the oil reservoirs

In the process of oil recovery, after the initial oil recovery process, a considerable amount of oil remains in oil reservoirs. Enhanced oil recovery methods are used to extract residual oil of reservoirs. Various methods are used to improve oil recovery, one of which is the injection of nanofluids instead of water injection. In this study, a numerical study has been considered to determine the effect of various nanomaterials on the improvement of oil recovery. Various nanoparticles have been included, and their major impacts on the factors affecting oil extraction are also presented. The black oil model has been used to study the numerical effect of the nanoparticles on oil extraction. A mixture of different metal oxides nanoparticles such as Al2O3, TiO2 and SiO2, and water as nanofluids is used as an aqueous phase in solving problems. Mass balance and momentum balance equations of nanofluids are solved numerically. In this study, the effect of temperature changes, nanoparticle concentration, nanofluid density, size and density of solid particles of nanoparticles on oil recovery, interfacial tension, and pore pressure variations have been examined.According to the results presented in this study, the addition of nanoparticles reduces the amount of suction and interfacial tension and also increases the amount of oil extraction by about 10%. By increasing the concentration of nanomaterials in the base solution, the amount of oil extraction increases by average 10%. The effect of the size and density of solid particles of nanoparticles on the amount of oil extraction is considerable, and the variations of these parameters also result in a change in oil extraction and increase the amount of oil recovery by about 5 to 8 percent.