Abstract

Heavy crude oil is one of the most potential fossil fuels at present and in the future. However, its high viscosity severely hinders its recovery from reservoir conditions. Heavy oil viscosity reduction is rather essential for its exploitation and transportation. Applying nanomaterials as viscosity reducer for heavy crude oil is an emerging research topic in petroleum industry. In this review, the recent progress about different nanomaterials that have been used in heavy oil viscosity reduction was summarized. These nanomaterials were roughly divided into four kinds: silicon oxide nanoparticles, metal oxide nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, modified nanoparticles and nanocomposites. The properties of the nanomaterials, including chemical property, concentration and injection form, size and the operational conditions such as temperature, different heavy oil and field application were discussed. At the same time, the possible oil viscosity reduction mechanisms including asphaltenes adsorption, disruption of asphaltene aggregates and heavy oil viscoelastic network, recombination of hydrogen bonds for different nanoparticles were summarized. The challenges and future work for this technology are proposed at the end. Nanomaterials for heavy oil viscosity reduction are expected to make a huge impact on petroleum industry.

摘要

重质原油是目前和未来最具潜力的化石燃料之一。然而，其高粘度严重阻碍了其从储层条件下的采收。稠油降粘对其开采和运输至关重要。将纳米材料用作稠油降粘剂是石油工业中新兴的研究课题。本文综述了近年来不同纳米材料在稠油降粘中的应用进展。这些纳米材料大致分为四种：氧化硅纳米粒子、金属氧化物纳米粒子、碳纳米管、改性纳米粒子和纳米复合材料。纳米材料的性质，包括化学性质、浓度和注入形式、尺寸和温度等操作条件，讨论了不同稠油和现场应用。同时，总结了不同纳米颗粒的可能的油粘度降低机制，包括沥青质吸附、沥青质聚集体和稠油粘弹性网络的破坏、氢键的重组。最后提出了该技术的挑战和未来工作。用于降低稠油粘度的纳米材料有望对石油工业产生巨大影响。