Evaluation of ionanofluid for chemical-enhanced oil recovery for matured crude oil reservoirs

The purpose of the present work is to evaluate applicability of ionanofluids for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) applications. Two different ionanofluids have been prepared for this study by adding silica nanoparticles into two different ionic liquids (tripropyl ammonium sulphate and triethyl ammonium sulphate) solutions. The effects of nanoparticle and ionic liquid on the interfacial tension of crude oil-nanofluid and their enhanced oil recovery performances have been evaluated. Ionanofluids are found to have the ability to reduce the interfacial tension to a significantly low value. The results of this study also indicate that ionanofluids has much higher enhanced oil recovery efficiencies in comparison to nanofluid and ionic liquid alone. Therefore, ionanofluids have the potential to be used as an excellent future EOR agent. [Received: February 11, 2021; Accepted: April 13, 2021]