Investigating the Effect of Different Nanofluids Types on Crude Oil Viscosity

In the last few years, some literature deals with oil viscosity reduction using nanoparticles. These nanoparticles will act as a catalyst during steam injection. In this research, seven different nanoparticles types investigated to study their effect on crude oil viscosity reduction. These nanoparticles comprise Potassium Aluminum Sulphate, Nickel oxide, Zeolite, Silica, Ferric oxide, Tungsten trioxide, and montmorillonite, with a particle size of 5 nm. Each nano solution was prepared in four different concentrations (0.005, 0.01, 0.1 and 1 wt. %). Flooding displacements carried out through the sandpack model using nanofluids and Egyptian crude oil of 30.7 API that was extracted from the Western Desert. After conventional brine flooding, the crude oil viscosity was measured to be 6.429 cp. While viscosity of the same crude oil was found to be 2.844 cp, 2.05 cp, 2.02 cp, 1.897 cp, 0.989 cp, 0.9612 cp and, 0.949 cp after flooding with Nickel oxide, montmorillonite, Fe2O3, Potassium aluminum sulfate, zeolite, tungsten trioxide, and nanosilica respectively