The role of red sand dunes nano sized particles for improved oil recovery

Green enhanced oil recovery (GEOR) is an environmentally friendly technique that injects specific green fluids to improve macroscopic and microscopic sweep efficiencies and boosts residual oil recovery. The modification of xanthan gum (XG) through nano-sized sand particles (NS-SP) is a pragmatic solution for GEOR. NS-SP is believed to have the ability to improve oil production and can be derived from beach sand in an environmentally friendly way. The NS-SP was developed from the sand which was collected from the Red Sand Dunes near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia through a ball milling process. In this work, we investigated the impact of using NS-SP as a surface coating agent for XG biopolymer to evaluate the stability, carrying capacity and recovery strength for EOR applications. Experiments such as zeta potential, interfacial tension (IFT) by pendent drop, rheology measurement, and core flood were carried out using a commercial Berea sandstone core plug. The result reveals that formulation II (NS-SP + XG + NaCl) after the screening, can improve oil recovery compared to formulation I (XG + NaCl). Specifically, an optimal XG concentration of 0.10 wt% in combination with 0.05 wt% NS-SP and 3 wt% NaCl recovered 4.5 % more of the original oil in place (at the tertiary stage) after screening via zeta potential and IFT. This reveals that the XG biopolymer performed better in the presence of the NS-SP and can boost more residual oil.