Effects of titanium dioxide nanoparticles on the efficiency of surfactant flooding of heavy oil in a glass micromodel

Nanotechnology has the potential to profoundly change enhanced oil recovery and to improve mechanism of recovery, and it is chosen as an alternative method to unlock the remaining oil resources and applied as a new enhanced oil recovery method in last decade. The objective of this research is identification of potential of nanotitanium dioxide as an appropriate agent for improving the efficiency of surfactant flooding in five-spot glass micromodels. In this work a series of solvent injection experiments was conducted on horizontal glass micromodels at same conditions. Surfactant solutions and newly developed nanosurfactant solutions with 1600-2000ppm sodium dodecyl sulfate were tested. Observations showed that nanotitanium dioxide has appropriate performance in enhancing the oil recovery at surfactant solution, near critical micelle concentration conditions. Also The results of experiments illustrated improvement of heavy oil recovery in micromodel test with nanotitanium dioxide (51.0%).