A Review of Nanofluids Synthesis for Oil and Gas Applications

A comprehensive review was performed on various aspects of nanofluids technology (including synthesis and materials characterization) with a focus on identification of applications in the oil and gas industry. Well-established and intuitive material properties of the bulk material do not hold at the nanoscale. The high surface area to volume ratio of nanoparticles result in counter-intuitive property enhancements in comparison to their bulk counterparts. Stable suspensions of nanoparticles in various solvents is termed as nanofluid. The material properties of nanoparticles can be tuned. As a result, nanofluids can be synthesized with tunable material properties that are responsive to external stimuli ("smart fluids"). This makes these materials attractive targets for deployment in various segments of the oil and gas industry. Nanofluids and nano-composites confer several advantages: such as enhanced strength, enhanced thermal conductivity, enhanced heat transfer area, enhanced oil recovery, enhanced magnetic properties, light-weight, resistance to corrosion, erosion, wear and tear. These afford various unconventional applications of nanofluids in the oil and gas industry. This provides an excellent value proposition for researching their synthesis methods and their working mechanisms. Nanofluids are synthesized by adding very minute concentrations of nanoparticles in the base fluid, leading to the formation of a colloidal suspension that is superior in the rheological, mechanical and thermal properties as compared to the base fluid (neat solvent). In this review the synthesis protocols reported in the literature are explored to ascertain their competitiveness for the oil and gas industry. Nanofluids were found to be attractive for applications ranging from exploration, drilling, and production.