The use of nanomaterials for alteration of wettability is a method that has grown in prominence after the development of techniques for synthesizing nanosized particles in the late 1980s. In this paper, after a review of the fundamentals of wettability alteration, a discussion of nanomaterials used for wettability alteration is provided. Among these nanomaterials, nanoparticles of silica and polysilicone indicate better results in terms of efficiency on incremental oil recovery in waterflooding.
Introduction
Wettability is the tendency of a fluid to spread over a specific surface and is relative to other existent fluids in that system and is defined by the contact angle of a droplet of the fluid and the surface. It is a result of adhesion forces between the fluid and the minerals of the rock.
