Fuel 292 (2021) 120174

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Fuel
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Full Length Article

A model for interpretation of nanoparticle-assisted oil recovery: Numerical

study of nanoparticle-enhanced spontaneous imbibition experiments
Razieh Khosravi , Mohammad Chahardowli *, Amin Keykhosravi , Mohammad Simjoo
Faculty of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering, Sahand University of Technology, Tabriz, Iran

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Oil-wet reservoirs suffer from an incomplete oil recovery. It is possible to use nanoparticles (NPs) to alter the
Numerical model reservoir rock wettability to a more water wet condition, and thus increase and accelerate oil recovery.
Wettability alteration Numerous experimental studies reported the proper potential of NPs as an oil recovery agent. In addition, several
Nanoparticles
modeling studies investigated the physics of nanoparticle injection into porous media. However, rarely the
Enhanced oil recovery
proposed models were validated using experimental nanoparticle-assisted oil recovery data. This paper in­
Spontaneous imbibition
troduces a novel workflow to interpret nanoparticle-enhanced oil recovery processes. The workflow uses a dy­
namic wettability alteration approach to mimic the transition of the rock wettability from an oil-wet condition to
a more water-wet condition. This approach implements a concentration dependent weighting factor, which
updates residual oil saturation, capillary pressure and relative permeabilities at each grid block in different time
steps.
The model equations are solved numerically using a finite difference scheme. Afterwards, the numerical model
is implemented to interpret a series of nanoparticle-assisted spontaneous imbibition experiments. An excellent
agreement between numerical and experimental results is achieved, which verifies the performance of the
proposed workflow. The results reveal that the presented approach is valid enough to be used for the modeling of
nanoparticle-assisted oil recovery processes. In conclusion, the findings of this study could provide a better
understanding of the performance of nanoparticles in both forced and spontaneous enhanced oil recovery
processes.

1. Introduction
The use of nanoparticles (NPs) is recommended as a proper enhanced
oil recovery (EOR) method. Several laboratory studies are performed in
the form of forced/spontaneous imbibition experiments that report NPs
could be considered as an efficient chemical agent EOR [1–9]. Ragab
and Hannora (2015) studied the injection of silica and alumina nano­
fluids with different concentrations in sandstone rocks to investigate the
EOR efficiency of NPs. Their results showed that both types of NPs could
increase the ultimate oil recovery to 81% of the OOIP [10]. Jafarnezhad
et al. (2017) investigated the application of SnO2 NPs for heavy oil re­
covery from carbonate rocks. The authors reported that the use of NPs
led to an ultimate oil recovery factor ranging from 39 to 61% of the OOIP
in the core-flooding experiments [11]. Besides, several mechanistic
studies were conducted to explore the underlying mechanisms of NPs for
EOR applications [12–18]. Upon the injection of NPs into the reservoir
rock, several mechanisms could occur and improve the oil recovery, i.e.,
they may alter the rock surface wettability, reduce the interfacial tension
(IFT) between the aqueous and oleic phases, improve the viscosity of
displacing fluid, prevent the deposition of asphaltene contents of the
crude oil, reduce the viscosity of oil, and stabilize emulsions or foams
[19,20]. Nevertheless, several studies showed that the alteration of the
rock wettability is the major contributing mechanism induced by NPs
[21–24] and the influence of other mechanisms are less pronounced
[25–27]. When NPs are dispersed in the aqueous phase, electrostatic
repulsion forces among the NPs could lead to a structural disjoining
pressure [28,29]. This pressure enforces the oil droplet to be released
from the rock surface and thus, the contact area between the oil droplet
and the rock surface is decreased, leading the alteration of the rock
wettability to a more water-wet condition [30]. In addition, several
types of NPs could directly provide ionic interactions with the present
cations and anions in the rock surface. Therefore, the NPs could adsorb
on the rock surface and provide a hydrophilic characteristic on the rock
surface. Besides, the NPs could provide polar interactions with asphal­
tene groups of crude oil and inhibit the precipitation of oil components

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: chahardowli@sut.ac.ir (M. Chahardowli).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2021.120174
Received 18 September 2020; Received in revised form 13 December 2020; Accepted 6 January 2021
Available online 11 February 2021
0016-2361/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
R. Khosravi et al.
Nomenclature
Alphabetic letters
B Oil and Water formation volume factor, m3/ m3
C Volume fraction of species in the aqueous phase, m3/ m3aq
D Capillary diffusion coefficient, m2/s
J Scaled capillary pressure
k Absolute permeability, m2
kr Relative permeability, fraction
n Corey exponents, fraction
P Pressure, Pa
Pc Capillary pressure, Pa
S Saturation of phase, fraction
u Phase velocity, m/s
Z Elevation with respect to datum, m
Greek Symbols
γ The retention rate coefficient of NPs on the pore surface, 1/
m
on the rock surface, which results a less oil-wet condition [31,32]. In this
case, the NPs are placed on the interface between the oleic and aqueous
phases and form oil/water nano-emulsions, which is comprehensively
reported by previous studies [33–36]. Such nano-emulsions are kineti­
cally stable due to the relative influences of electrostatic repulsion,
stearic hindrance, and viscosity modification, which provide an ability
to decrease the IFT of oil/water system [37,38]. However, the efficiency
of NPs decreases in high salinity and high temperature conditions.
Indeed, such conditions decrease the stability of the nanofluids, which
lead to the deposition of NPs and cause the formation of large clusters
and rock permeability impairment. The presence of salt within the
nanofluids decreases the electrostatic repulsion forces among NPs and
thus, Van der Waals forces extend the NPs aggregation, which reduces
the stability of nanofluids [39,40]. As a result of this process, the
dispersion efficiency of NPs decreases and their effective concentration
in the aqueous phase decreases and thus it lowers their injectivity and
decreases the NPs performance in the wettability alteration process
[40–42]. The study of Nwidee et al. (2016) showed that the injection of a
solution of 0.05 wt% ZrO2 nanoparticle in the aqueous phase led to
enhanced oil recovery from limestone rocks; they also reported that
wettability alteration from an oil-wet state to a water-wet state was
mainly responsible for the extra oil recovery [43]. Keykhosravi and
Simjoo (2020) studied the use of Gamma-Alumina based nanofluids to
enhance the recovery of spontaneous imbibition in carbonate rocks.
Their results showed an extra oil recovery of 11.5% of the OOIP after
altering the rock wettability from an oil-wet condition to a strongly
water-wet condition [44]. Moreover, the authors reported that the rock
wettability alteration is time-dependent, which affect both the imbibi­
tion rate and ultimate recovery. Consequently, the dynamic contact
angle approach could be considered an appropriate approach for
describing wettability alteration by NPs [26,40,45,46].
To the best of our knowledge, a few modeling studies of
nanoparticle-assisted oil recovery processes can be found in the litera­
ture. The previous modeling studies mostly have focused on the NPs
transport and migration in porous medium [47–52] and rarely have
modeled enhanced oil recovery obtained by NPs. For instance, Ju et al.
(2006) developed a 1D, two-phase model for incompressible fluids to
describe the performance of hydrophilic polysilicon NPs for wettability
modification. They considered the migration and adsorption of NPs
within the pore surfaces, and also wettability alteration of the reservoir
rock, which only affected relative permeability curves. Their results
indicated that both rock permeability and porosity decrease by attach­
ment and retention of NPs into porous media [53]. Furthermore, El-
2
Fuel 292 (2021) 120174
θ Contact angle
μ Phase viscosity, Pa.s
ϕ Porosity, fraction
ω Relative adsorption, fraction
Subscripts
n NPs in aqueous phase
nS1 NPs adsorbed on the rock surface
o Oil
or Residual oil
w Water
wc Connate water
Superscripts
f At the final condition
i At the initial condition
t At time t
* End point
Amin et al. (2012 and 2016) derived a two-phase incompressible
model to describe the imbibition of nanofluids in a homogeneous
permeable medium. Their model comprised mechanical dispersion,
Brownian diffusion, buoyancy and capillary forces. They also considered
a decrease of porosity and absolute permeability as a consequence of
NPs retention [54,55]. In another study, Sepehri et al. (2019) developed
a numerical model to study silica NPs injection and investigate its effect
on oil recovery. In order to mimic wettability alteration process, the
authors modified capillary pressure and relative permeability. Their
results proved that the entrainment and entrapment of NPs within the
pore surfaces cause a formation damage and alters the rock wettability
[56]. To the best of our knowledge, the developed models in the liter­
ature did not consider the variation of relative permeability and capil­
lary pressure functions versus time, i.e., they did not used a dynamic
wettability alteration approach. In addition, hardly any of them is
validated using experimental data. In this work, a dynamic wettability
alteration approach is implemented to determine the wetting condition
of the system at each time step, and to calculate proper capillary pres­
sure and relative permeability functions. The approach comprises a
linear interpolation between the initial and final wetting states, which is
determined from contact angle at each time step. The variation of con­
tact angle is correlated with the variation of the solute concentration.
The model is verified using NPs-enhanced spontaneous imbibition
experimental data. In the current study, a numerical model is presented
to describe nanoparticle-enhanced forced/spontaneous imbibition in a
two-dimensional system. To this end, an empirical equation is derived
based on the laboratory data to correlate the contact angle and the NPs
concentration. The effect of wettability alteration is implemented using
a linear interpolation, which depends on the dynamic contact angle
profile. Therefore, it is possible to correlate capillary pressure and
relative permeability curves along with the residual oil saturation in
different wettability states. It is important to mention that diffusion
coefficient and relative permeability/capillary pressure curves are not
measured directly in the laboratory. In this study, numerical modeling is
preformed to history match experimental results of NPs enhanced
spontaneous imbibition in a single block. Results showed a good
agreement between the modeling and experimental data; this indicates
that the proposed approach is well-defined to be applied for modeling of
NPs-assisted enhanced oil recovery processes. Consequently, the ad­
vantages of this study is that a dynamic correlation is implemented to
calculate the wettability alteration parameter at each time step and at
each grid block. Therefore, it is possible to use proper capillary pressure
and relative permeability functions. Previously presented NPs-transport
R. Khosravi et al. Fuel 292 (2021) 120174

models are not verified using experimental data. But, the presented ( )
∂ ϕSo
approach in this work, is verified through comparison of the numerical ∇∙(kλo (∇Po − γo ∇Z) ) = (1)
model results with the experimental results, which showed a good ∂ t Bo
agreement. The general sketch of the problem is shown in Fig. 1. The ( )
∂ ϕSw
paper is organized as follows: the mathematical model and procedure of ∇∙(kλw (∇Pw − γ w ∇Z) ) = (2)
∂t Bw
the numerical modeling is described in the “Mathematical model” sec­
tion. Then, results and model validations are discussed in detail in
∂(ϕCn Sw ) ∂Cns1
“Results and discussions” section. The paper ends with drawing the main ∇∙(ϕSw D∇Cn ) − ∇∙(Cn (kλw (∇Pw − γ w ∇Z) ) ) − − =0
∂t ∂t
conclusions in “Summary and conclusions” section.
(3)

2. Mathematical model
A two-phase incompressible fluid flow including three components is
developed to describe the NPs-assisted forced/spontaneous imbibition
in rocks. We used a concentration-dependent contact angle to charac­
terize the dynamic wettability alteration process. The following as­
sumptions are applied: 1) System is considered homogeneous; 2) NPs are
present only in the aqueous phase; 3) oil and the mixture of water and
NPs are considered to be Newtonian and incompressible fluids; 4) the
water volume fraction in the water equation is considered constant, i.e.,
Cw = 1, see Eq. (2); 5) a NPs concentration gradient in the aqueous
phase leads to a diffusion, which transports NPs though the aqueous
phase; the diffusion coefficient is considered as a matching parameter;
6) the viscosity and density of both phases, and IFT are assumed to be
constant and at the equilibrium state; 7) The rock porosity and perme­
ability are not significantly influenced by blocking of NPs, pore plugging
and entrainment of NPs are considered negligible, i.e., and both the rock
porosity and absolute permeability are considered constant [44,57]. It is
possible to further develop the model and decrease the number of as­
sumptions and improve the model accuracy.
2.1. Mathematical model for nanoparticle transport in porous media
In order to develop the mathematical model of NPs-assisted oil re­
covery, mass conservation of water, oil and NPs are combined with
Darcy’s equations. Therefore, three equations including the continuity
equations for oil and water, and the ARD equation for NPs are obtained.
Independent variables are water pressure, water saturation and volume
fraction of NPs. The nonlinear system of equations reads [58]:
The subscripts w and o express the wetting (aqueous) and the non-
( )
wetting (oleic) phases, respectively; Cn m3n /m3aq is the volume frac­
tion of NPs in the aqueous phase; D (m2 /s) is the diffusion coefficient;
( )
Cns1 m3ns1 /m3aq is the volume fraction of NPs adsorbed on the rock
surface. The term ∂C∂ns1
t
is the adsorption term and is defined by the
following Equation:
∂Cns1
= γ|uw |Cn (4)
∂t
where γ(m− 1 ) denotes the retention rate coefficient of NPs on the pore
surface, i.e., it is considered γ = 16 m− 1 in this work (El-amin et al.,
2012). uw (m/s) is the apparent velocity of aqueous phase, obtained from
Darcy equation after calculation of pressure and saturation in each time
step and will be used for calculating NP concentration, see Eq. (3).
A finite difference method, i.e., an implicit pressure, explicit satu­
ration and concentration approach, was implemented to solve the
nonlinear system of equations. The linearization of the non-linear parts
in equations was performed using Newton’s linearization method.
In order to validate the numerical model, we modeled a series of NPs-
assisted spontaneous imbibition experiments reported by Keykhosravi
and Simjoo (2020). The geometry of the experiments is shown in Fig. 2;
in all experiments all faces of the core samples were contacted with NPs.
As shown in Fig. 2, in a spontaneous imbibition process, in the presence
of a positive capillary pressure, the aqueous phase NPs (blue arrows)
imbibes into the core from an open boundary, and oil (red arrows) is
produced from an opposite direction. The initial and boundary condi­
tions for a spontaneous imbibition process in a water-wet/oil-wet rock

Fig. 1. The general sketch of the problem.

3
R. Khosravi et al. Fuel 292 (2021) 120174

f
where Sior and Sor are residual oil saturation at the initial and final
wetting condition.
The correlation to calculate relative permeability and capillary
pressure is explained in Appendix A.
The system of non-linear equations is solved using the Newton
linearization method and a finite difference scheme. Fig. 3 depicts the
flow chart of the applied numerical approach in the present study.

3. Results and discussions

To validate the numerical model, the results of NPs-assisted spon­

taneous imbibition experiments, See Keykhosravi and Simjoo, 2020,
were compared to the numerical results. The imbibition experiments
were performed in carbonate rocks using NPs with various concentra­
tions, i.e., 0.01, 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 wt%. The rock samples properties and
fluids data are presented in Table 1 [44].
Since the core samples were asymmetric cylindrical and they were
fully immersed in the aqueous solution, a rectangular section of the core
Fig. 2. The schematics of a spontaneous imbibition process in a core. was considered and the model equations were numerically solved. First,
the model was run for several grid sizes from 10 × 5 to 30 × 10 grids for
are described in Appendix A (Eqs. (A.1) to (A.6)) [59]. inlet concentration of 0.3 wt% to investigate the independency of the
The used dynamic wettability alteration approach is presented as solution to the number of grid block. Results are shown in see Fig. 4, e.g.
follows: the most stable condition is attributed to 30 × 10 grid blocks (Δx =
First, the contact angle must be defined as a function of the NPs 0.38cm, Δy = 0.23cm). Moreover, the time step was controlled using
concentration in the aqueous phase using the experimentally measured equation (A.17) to achieve a stable numerical solution [62].
data. In this study, we used the experimental data, which is reported by Fig. 5 shows the relation between the contact angle the nanoparticle
Keykhosravi and Simjoo (2020), and obtained an empirical correlation: concentration, which is used to calculate the wettability alteration
parameter, ω [44]. Furthermore, Fig. 6 illustrates the linear dependency
θt = 4012.9C3n − 1407.7C2n − 17858Cn + 103.92 (5)
of the residual oil saturation to ω (Fig. 6a) and to the contact angle
(Fig. 6b).
where θt is the final (equilibrium) contact angle at each time step.
Fig. 7 schematically shows what actually happens during time when
Second, a wettability alteration parameter, ω is considered to update
the aqueous phase imbibes into the core. At the initial condition
capillary pressure, relative permeabilities, and residual oil saturation.
(Fig. 7a), i.e. oil-wet condition, the core plug is saturated with oil and
Therefore, it is possible to define the wetting state of the rock at each
connate water. Upon imbibition of the aqueous phase in the core
time step. Note that ω is a function of IFT, which can be computed at
(Fig. 7b), the NPs concentration in the system increases. This leads to the
each time step by the following equation [60]:
wettability modification of the core plug, towards a water-wet condi­
θi − θt tion. At a specific time in individual grid blocks, there is a certain NPs
ω= (6)
θi − θf concentration in each grid block. Therefore, it is possible to calculate the
contact angle at that NPs concentration and to compute the wettability
where θi is the contact angle at the initial condition, i.e., no NPs con­ alteration parameter. Consequently, both capillary pressure and relative
centration; θf is the contact angle at the final condition, which is permeability functions are determined using calculated ω in each grid
attributed to the highest NPs inlet concentration. θt is obtained using Eq. block (Fig. 7c).
(5) at each time step. Table 2 reports the input parameter for calculation of relative
At the end, a linear interpolation implements the wettability alter­ permeability and capillary pressure functions, which are derived from
ation parameter, ω, to calculate the residual oil saturation, capillary literature [63,64]. Matching parameters used in this model for different
pressure (see reference [61]) and relative permeabilities at each time cases are also shown in Table 3.
step. Consequently, the wetting condition in different points of the The input parameters and different values of ω were implemented to
domain at each time step is defined as below: calculate the relative permeability (Fig. 8a) and capillary pressure
(Fig. 8b) functions at different wetting conditions. In Fig. 8, ω = 1 cor­
*
krw *f
= ωkrw *i
+ (1 − ω)krw (7)
responds to water-wet condition and ω = 0 corresponds to oil-wet
condition. For instance, a higher value of the wettability alteration
*
kro *f
= ωkro *i
+ (1 − ω)kro (8)
parameter, ω, the capillary pressure function has a higher and larger
positive part, such a high capillary pressure leads to a higher and faster
nw = ωnfw + (1 − ω)niw (9)
oil recovery due to spontaneous imbibition. The same results for varia­
tion of relative permeability and capillary pressure curves at different
no = ωnfo + (1 − ω)nio (10)
wettability conditions are reported by previous studies [61,65].
In Fig. 9 the experimental and numerical model oil recovery from
Pc = ωPfc + (1 − ω)Pic (11)
enhanced spontaneous imbibition are compared; there are four inlet NPs
concentrations of 0.01, 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 wt%. There are good matches
where superscripts i and f denote initial and final conditions, k*rw and k*ro
between experimental and numerical results, which show the validity of
are the end-point relative permeabilities of water and oil; nw and no are
the proposed approach. Upon the imbibition of NPs into the core sam­
Corey exponents for water and oil. In addition, the residual oil saturation
ples, no immediate oil recovery is achieved. After 15 days, the case with
is updated using the following equation:
the highest NPs inlet concentration (0.3 wt%) gives the highest amount
new
Sor f
= ωSor i
+ (1 − ω)Sor (12) of oil recovery (11.5% of the OOIP) in comparison to other inlet con­
centrations (9.8% of the OOIP for 0.2 wt% solution, 6.8% of the OOIP for

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R. Khosravi et al. Fuel 292 (2021) 120174

Fig. 3. Flow chart of the numerical modeling procedure.

Table 1
Rock and fluids properties [44].
Property 0.01 wt% 0.1 wt% 0.2 wt% 0.3 wt%

Length (cm) 6.9 7.1 6.8 7.1

Diameter (cm) 3.8 3.8 3.8 3.8
Porosity (%) 16.9 14.5 16.3 16.6
Permeability (md) 70.3 54.2 53.5 45.9
Water viscosity (mPa.s) 0.35 0.35 0.35 0.35
Oil viscosity (mPa.s) 18.5 18.5 18.5 18.5
IFT (mN/m) 15.1 14.4 13.8 12.9

0.1 wt% solution and 3.8% of the OOIP for 0.01 wt% solution). In
summary, results show that the increase of the NPs concentration leads
to a faster oil production and a larger recovery factor. The results can be
attributed to the fact that with the increase of NPs concentration, the
repulsive forces between these particles increase, therefore Brownian
motion of nanoparticles increases [66]. This phenomenon leads to
Fig. 4. Stability analysis on number of grid blocks for oil recovery due to NPs
altering the rock wettability towards water-wet condition and as a (0.3 wt%) enhanced spontaneous imbibition flow after 5 days.
consequence, enhances spontaneous imbibition oil recovery.
Now, the effect of NPs concentration on relative permeability and
an enhancement increases both the ultimate oil recovery and recovery
capillary pressure functions are discussed. Fig. 9 shows water/oil rela­
rate [67–69].
tive permeabilities and capillary pressure as a function of water satu­
Fig. 11 shows the NPs concentration distribution of different values
ration at various NPs concentrations (0.01, 0 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 wt%). As
of NPs concentration (0.01 and 0.3 wt%), after 1 h (Fig. 11a and 11e), 1
can be seen, rising the concentration of NPs from 0.01 to 0.3 wt%, causes
day (Fig. 11b and 11f), 4 days (Fig. 11c and 11 g) and 14 days (Fig. 11d
a change in the system wettability to more water wetness, which leads to
and 11 h). As the core plugs are in contact with the aqueous phase from
a decrease of the water relative permeability, an increases oil relative
all boundaries, the NPs concentration is higher in areas near the
permeability (Fig. 10a), and a higher capillary pressure (Fig. 10b); such
boundaries. Fig. 10d and 10 h show that for each inlet concentration, the

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R. Khosravi et al. Fuel 292 (2021) 120174

concentration of NPs along the core surface increases and approaches to

Fig. 5. The relation between the nanoparticle concentration and contact angle.
a value adjacent to the inlet concentrations after 14 days. Moreover, the
NPs concentration along the core surface increases by the increase of the
NPs concentration and imbibition time, which leads to a dynamic
wettability alteration. Nevertheless, it is apparent from the results that
the NPs concentration wave proceeds faster along the core plug for the
case of 0.3 wt% NPs concentration compared with that of 0.01 wt%. In
general, it can be concluded that in a system with a higher NPs con­
centration, a faster NPs mass transfer occurs [70]. The impact of capil­
lary forces at early stages of the process is evident from a faster
imbibition rate in boundaries neighboring blocks. At later stages of the
process, the imbibition front becomes more uniform along the core.
Fig. 12 shows the distribution of the wettability alteration parameter
(ω) for the NPs inlet concentration of 0.3 wt% in different time steps.
The variation of the wettability alteration parameter versus time has a
similar trend with the variation of the NPs concentration distribution,

Fig. 6. The linear variation of residual oil saturation by different values of ω (a) and contact angle (b) in the current model.

Fig. 7. Schematic of (a) Initial Condition, (b) wettability alteration and (C) the variation of relative permeability functions in different grid blocks.

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R. Khosravi et al. Fuel 292 (2021) 120174

Table 2
The used data for calculation of relative permeability and capillary pressure
functions.
Parameters Oil-wet condition Water-wet condition

Swr 0.15 0.25

Sor 0.3 0.15
k*rw 0.65 0.45
k*ro 0.5 0.85
nw 1.5 2.5
no 3 1.5

Table 3
Matching parameters used in different NPs concentrations.
NPs Concentration, wt% PCmax (Pa) Diffusion coefficient (m2 /s) Fig. 9. Experimental and modeling oil recovery data matching.
-8
0.01 200 1 × 10
0.1 400 1.3 × 10-8 of NPs on altering the rock wettability is modeled via changing relative
0.2 500 0.8 × 10-8 permeability and capillary pressure functions. The main results of this
0.3 800 1.2 × 10-8 study are given as follows:

see Fig. 11.
Fig. 13 depicts the variation of saturation distribution in different
time steps for the core imposed to a solution of 0.3 wt% NPs concen­
tration. Comparison of Figs. 10 and 12 with similar NPs inlet concen­
trations illustrates that the speed of propagation of saturation is much
slower than nanoparticle concentration along the core length.
Let us assume a constant × position and investigate the variation of
the NPs concentration, the wettability alteration parameter and satu­
ration distribution in y-direction. Results are shown in Figs. 14–16.
According to Fig. 14, NPs concentration changes from an initial value
of Ci = 0 to NPs inlet concentration equals C = Ci , which in this case
Ci = 0.3. Moreover, the wettability alteration parameter varies between
ω = 0 (an oil-wet condition) and ω = 1 (a water-wet condition) with a
similar trend as NPs concentration distribution (see Fig. 15). Moreover,
the slow propagation of saturation wave is better demonstrated in 1D
plots, which is shown in Fig. 16.
4. Summary and conclusions
This paper discusses a 2D numerical model to interpret oil recovery
enhancement induced by application of nanoparticles as a chemical
enhanced oil recovery agent. The model is validated using a comparison
between the model results and the laboratory data of nanoparticles-
assisted enhanced spontaneous imbibition in a single block. The effect
• The model characterizes the transition from an initial oil-wet con­
dition to a more water-wet-condition causing an enhanced sponta­
neous imbibition of nanofluids.
• The distribution of the NPs concentration is visualized by the model,
in which as the spontaneous imbibition process continues, a higher
NPs concentration is obtained, and as the NPs inlet concentration
increases from 0.01 to 0.3 wt%, the NPs concentration increases
along the core length.
• The wettability alteration parameter is considered a function of the
contact angle, and thus its trend is similar to the NPs concentration
distribution.
• The propagation of the saturation waves is much slower than the
propagation of the concentration waves along the core length.
• Both the model and experimental results reveals that the wettability
alteration process induced by NPs is a dynamic process, which can be
considered an important parameter for history matching and per­
formance prediction in oil-wet reservoirs.
• The good agreement between model results and experimental data
demonstrated that the proposed model can characterize the sponta­
neous imbibition of NPs through depending on both dynamic contact
angle data and NPs concentration.
• The results show that the presented approach could be applied to
model nanoparticles-assisted oil recovery processes.

Fig. 8. (a) Relative permeability and (b) capillary pressure (b) for different wettability states.

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R. Khosravi et al. Fuel 292 (2021) 120174

Fig. 10. (a) Water/oil relative permeability and (b) capillary pressure as a function of the NPs concentrations of 0.01, 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 wt%.

Fig. 11. The NPs concentration distribution with different values of inlet concentrations (0.01 and 0.3 wt%) after 14 days.

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R. Khosravi et al. Fuel 292 (2021) 120174

Fig. 12. The variation of the wettability alteration parameter (ω) versus time for an NPs inlet concentration of 0.3 wt%.

Fig. 13. Variation of saturation distribution with time for inlet concentration of 0.3 wt%.

Fig. 14. The NPs concentration distribution in y direction in a core imposed to

Fig. 15. The wettability alteration parameter distribution in y direction in a
a solution with a concentration of 0.3 wt% after 14 days.
core imposed to a solution with a concentration of 0.3 wt% after 14 days.

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R. Khosravi et al. Fuel 292 (2021) 120174

Methodology, Writing - original draft, Software, Formal analysis, Vali­

dation. Mohammad Chahardowli: Conceptualization, Supervision,
Data curation, Validation, Methodology, Writing - review & editing.
Amin Keykhosravi: Project administration, Visualization, Data cura­
tion, Writing - original draft, Resources, Methodology. Mohammad
Simjoo: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Data curation,
Writing - review & editing, Supervision.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial

interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.

Fig. 16. Saturation distribution in y direction in a core imposed to a solution

with a concentration of 0.3 wt% after 14 days.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Razieh Khosravi: Visualization, Investigation, Data curation,

Appendix A

The initial and boundary conditions for a spontaneous imbibition process:

The boundary conditions are examined in a 2D medium where all the faces are in contact with aqueous phase containing NPs. Due to a positive
capillary pressure, the aqueous phase imbibes into the core from an open boundary, and oil is produced from an opposite direction. To bring about this
condition, the following boundary conditions will be applied in the model:
t = 0, Sw = Swi , 0 ≤ x ≤ Lx , 0 ≤ y ≤ Ly (A.1)

t = 0, Pw = − Pc (Swi ), 0 ≤ x ≤ Lx , 0 ≤ y ≤ Ly (A.2)

t = 0, Cn = 0, 0 ≤ x ≤ Lx , 0 ≤ y ≤ Ly (A.3)

t = 0+ , Sw = 1 − Sor , x = 0, Lx or y = 0, Ly (A.4)
+
t = 0 , Pw = 0, x = 0, Lx or y = 0, Ly (A.5)

t = 0+ , Cn = Ci , x = 0, Lx or y = 0, Ly (A.6)
( )nw
Sw − Swc
*
krw = krw new − S
(A.7)
1 − Sor wc

( new
)n o
1 − Sw − Sor
*
kro = kro new − S
(A.8)
1 − Sor wc

Water and oil relative permeabilities are calculated using the following equations:
Afterwards, J-function is calculated to update the capillary pressure function as follows:
a1 a2
J(Sw ) = − + b1 (A.9)
1 + k1 Sw 1 + k2 (1 − Sw )

Pc (Sw ) = Pcmax J(Sw ), − 1 < J(Sw ) < 1 (A.10)

where a1 , a2 , b1 , k1 and k2 are capillary pressure correlation parameters, Pcmax is the maximum capillary pressure and is considered a matching
parameter.
The time step was also controlled using the following equation to achieve a stable numerical solution [62]:
( ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ))
1 ϕ 1 μo μw 1 2 ϕj 1 μ o μw
Δt < min Δx2 mini i min i,S w + , Δy minj min j,S w + (A.11)
2 ki Sw max(|Pc |) kro krw 2 kj Sw max(|Pc |) kro krw

10
R. Khosravi et al. Fuel 292 (2021) 120174

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