Rheological properties of surface-modified nanoparticles-stabilized CO₂ foam

Abstract

This study investigates the rheological properties of surface-modified nanoparticles-stabilized CO₂ foam in porous media for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) applications. Due to the foam pseudo-plastic behavior, the foam apparent viscosity was estimated based on the power law constitutive model. The results show that foam exhibit shear-thinning behavior. The presence of surface-modified silica nanoparticles enhanced the foam bulk apparent viscosity by 15%. Foam apparent viscosity in the capillary porous media was four times higher than that in capillary viscometer, and foam apparent viscosity increased as porous media permeability increases. The high apparent viscosity of the surface-modified nanoparticles-stabilized foam could result in effective fluid diversion and pore blocking processes and enhance their potential applications in heterogeneous reservoir.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Apparent viscosity
• foam
• porous media
• surface-modified silica nanoparticles

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Higher Education (Vot no. Q.J130000.2542.08H61) and Universiti Teknologi (UTM) Malaysia, for supporting this research.