Summary
Fines migration is a noticeable problem in petroleum-production engineering.
Plugging of throats in porous media occurs because of detachment of fine
particles from sand surfaces. Thus, the study of interactions between fines and
pore surfaces and the investigation of governing forces are important factors
to consider when describing the mechanism of the fines-release process. The
main types of these forces are electric double-layer repulsion (DLR) and
London--van der Waals attraction (LVA). It may be possible to alter these
forces with nanoparticles (NPs) as surface coatings. In comparison with
repulsion forces, NPs increase the effect of attraction forces.
In this paper, we present new experiments and simple modeling to observe
such properties of NPs. For this purpose, the surfaces of pores were coated
with different types of NPs: magnesium oxide (MgO), silicon dioxide
(SiO2), and aluminum oxide (Al2O3). A
zeta-potential test was used to examine changes in the potential of the pore
surfaces. Total interaction energy was then mathematically calculated to
compare different states. Total interaction energy is a fitting criterion that
gives proper information about the effect of different NPs on surface
properties. Consequently, total interaction plots are found to be suitable
tools for selecting the best coating material.
On the basis of experimental results, the magnitude of change in zeta
potential for the MgO NP was 45 mV. Our model demonstrated that the magnitude
of the electric DLR in comparison with the LVA of the probe and plate surface
was considerably diminished when MgO NPs were used to coat the surface of the
plate, which agrees completely with our experimental observation.
© 2013. Society of Petroleum Engineers
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History
- Original manuscript received:
16 February 2011
- Meeting paper published:
6 March 2011
- Revised manuscript received:
28 July 2012
- Manuscript approved:
2 October 2012
- Published online:
22 February 2013
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