New Insight of Nanosheet Enhanced Oil Recovery Modeling: Structural Disjoining Pressure and Profile Control Technique Simulation

Abstract

This study presents a novel Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) method using Smart Black Nanocards (SLNs) to mitigate the environmental impact of conventional thermal recovery, especially under global warming. Unlike prior studies focusing on wettability alteration via adsorption, this research innovatively models ‘oil film detachment’ in a reservoir simulator to achieve wettability alteration. Using the CMG-STARS (2020) simulator, this study highlights SLNs’ superior performance over traditional chemical EOR and spherical nanoparticles by reducing residual oil saturation and shifting wettability toward water-wet conditions. The structural disjoining pressure (SDP) of SLNs reaches 20.99 × 103 Pa, 16.5 times higher than spherical particles with an 18.5 nm diameter. Supported by the Percus–Yevick (PY) theory, the numerical model achieves high accuracy in production history matching, with oil recovery and water cut fitting within precision error ranges of 0.02 and 0.05, respectively. This research advances chemical EOR technologies and offers an environmentally sustainable, efficient recovery strategy for low-permeability and heavy oil reservoirs, serving as a promising alternative to thermal methods.

Keywords

• nanofluid
• modeling
• structural disjoining pressure
• self-profile control and flooding