Petroleum Engineering Department

UNDERGRADUATE PROJECT
PROPOSAL

2019/2020

1. Sayaf Salman Hamad

2. Muhammad Hassan Ababakr

Submitted by:
3. Snober Yaseen

4.
 1. General Information of the Project
Investigation of Ultra-Sonic Wave Effect on NCs Adsorption by
Sandstone Rock.
Project Title:

2. Advisors Information
University /
Name Academic Title Research Signature
Center
Abbas Khaksar Soran
1st Supervisor PhD
Manshad University

2nd Supervisor Soran

Jagar Ali Abdulaziz MSc
University

Advisor Barham Sabir Soran

MSc
(if applicable) Mahmood University

3. Group Representative's Information

Name: Sayaf Salman Hamad Student ID: 50316026

Academic Education
Discipline
Student Level:
Undergraduate Level

Land Phone: Cell Phone: 9647504706470

Email Address: sayafsalman5@gmail.com

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 4. Technical Information of the Project

Description of the project and the necessity to work on this particular project

Only 40% of original oil in place (OOIP) of oil reservoirs can produce, after
primary and secondary recovery the rest remains as residual oil due to geological
and physical factors (Alhomadhi, Amro and Almobarky 2014, p.1). Hence, The
significance of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods to improve oil production
effectiveness is extremely recognized (Kong and Ohadi 2010, p.4). This method has
gone through varies technics until reached the optimum technic till now which is
using water with nanoparticles and other chemicals and ultrasonic wave to optimize
the process. First, water flooding introduced but in this technic sweep efficiency is
low due to high mobility ratio so polymeric flooding introduced to solve this issue
but its performance influenced by crude oil properties, temperature, reservoir
conditions and salinity. To eliminate this problem low-salinity water flooding used,
but beside the advantages of this technic, fine migration occurred during this technic
which is cause of reducing porosity and permeability. After that surfactant flooding
applied but in addition of high cost it has a possibility to damage the formation, for
this purpose, new technology developed which is nanoparticles mixed with water or
other chemicals to solve all problems and optimize oil recovery in a cost-effective
manner and lowest environment damage (Jagar Ali 2019, p.2-3). Using
nanoparticles in EOR can increase oil recovery due to increasing viscosity of the
injected fluid, wettability alteration, interfacial tension (IFT) reduction, stable
emulsion between oil an nanofluid (Negin, Ali and Xie 2016, p.332), (Jagar Ali
2019, p.25).
Nowadays, using of ultrasonic wave in EOR processes is widely discussed
and it has been of great interest to researchers because this technic is friendly with
environmental and economic. It has a high effect in increasing oil recovery due to
overcome the IFT, decreasing capillary pressure in pores and emulsion stability
(Canselier et al 2002, p.354), (Alhomadhi, Amro and Almobarky 2014, p.1).
Previously, effect of ultrasonic wave on water and surfactant flooding investigated
by Agi et al (2019, p.1) and results showed that ultrasonic waves can increase oil
recovery by reducing surfactant adsorption. But this research work on effect of
ultrasonic wave on nanocomposits (NCs) adsorption by sandstone rock.

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 Description of the project and the necessity to work on this particular project

Project objectives

In addition using ultrasonic wave to minimize NCs adsorption by sandstone rock,

the goal is to getting higher recovery due to wettability alteration from oil-wet to a
strong water-wet, minimizing the IFT, provide a stable emulsion with the crude oil,
Increase the viscosity of the injected fluid, and prevent fine migration.

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 Student’s proposed scientific approach
(Please include all necessary steps, methods, equipment and techniques to
investigate the problem and verify, validate and formulate the results)

Equipment:
An ultrasonic bath connected to an ultrasonic wave generator. A pump to inject the
fluid to the sandstone core sample. Vacuum pump to vacuum the core sample before
saturation. A pressure gauge to measure the pressure difference between the inlet
and outlet of the core sample. A Core holder. Fluid storage holder. Scanning
electron microscopy (SEM) to investigate the characterizations of the NC.
Materials:
Sandstone core sample, nanoparticle (SiO2), polymer Xanthan gum, high salinity
brine, crude oil.
Fluid preparation:
Polymer coated by nanoparticle prepared in different concentrations by mixing
(SiO2+Xanthan) with the water.
Experiment procedure:
Porosity and permeability of the core sample should be calculated. Water inject to
the sandstone core sample. crude oil then inject, The water saturation (Sw) and oil
saturation (So) calculate from the volume of water and oil that came out of the sand-
pack. After that, the core set in the center of the bath to have maximum exposure
with ultrasonic wave, then NC flooding start finally SEM use to looking the changes
that occurred on the core. After cleaning the core sample repeat this for the other
nanofluid concentrations.

5
 Student’s proposed scientific approach
(Please include all necessary steps, methods, equipment and techniques to
investigate the problem and verify, validate and formulate the results)

Literature related to the project

(Please mention a number of the most important literature related to your project and
give a brief description about each)

6
 Student’s proposed scientific approach
(Please include all necessary steps, methods, equipment and techniques to
investigate the problem and verify, validate and formulate the results)

1- Agi Augustine, Junin Radzuan, Shirazi Ramin, Afeez Gbadamosi, Yekeen

Nurudeen. (2018) ‘Comparative Study of Ultrasound Assisted Water and
Surfactant Flooding’, Journal of King Saud University – Engineering Sciences, 10
January, 1-8. (Mentioned paper compares the effects of ultrasonic waves with
surfactants and water flooding on EOR processing, which indicates that
ultrasounds can assist water and surfactant flooding to increase HC recovery for up
to 11% and 12% respectively).
2- Chegenizadeh Negin, Saeedi Ali, Quan Xie. (2016) ‘Application of
nanotechnology for enhancing oil recovery – A review’, Petroleum, 10 October,
324-333. (This work provides a conclusion about each common and usable
nanoparticles and mention their optimum processing conditions, that classifies
nanoparticles into three categories of metal oxide, organic and inorganic particles).
3- Emad Alhomadhi, Mohammad Amro, Mohammad Almobarky. (2013)
‘Experimental application of ultrasound waves to improved oil recovery during
waterfloodin’, Journal of King Saud University – Engineering Sciences, 16 April,
103-110. (In this study, laboratory experiments on core samples were conducted to
investigate the ability of ultrasound waves to mobilize additional oil. The core
flooding was performed horizontally and vertically and the wave stimulation was
applied at original oil in place and at residual oil saturation after performing initial
waterflooding. Results show that the rate of oil displacement increases due to
various identified mechanisms, and
the interaction of the generated waves with the fluids in porous media causes
changes in relative permeability and in water breakthrough).
4- J.A. Ali, K. Kolo, A.K. Manshad, Karl D. Stephen. (2019), ‘Potential application
of low-salinity polymeric-nanofluid in carbonate oil reservoirs: IFT reduction,
wettability alteration, rheology and emulsification characteristics’, Journal of
Molecular Liquids,10 April, 735-747. (During this work a polymer has been
produces from pomegranate and coated with ZnO/SiO2 in order to analyze the