Tag Archives: oil

Removing more than 99% of crude oil from ‘produced’ water (well water)

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Should you have an oil well nearby (see The Urban Oil Fields of Los Angeles in an August 28, 2014 photo essay by Alan Taylor for The Atlantic for examples of oil wells in various municipalities and cities associated with LS) , this news from Texas may interest you.

From an August 15, 2018 news item on Nanowerk,

Oil and water tend to separate, but they mix well enough to form stable oil-in-water emulsions in produced water from oil reservoirs to become a problem. Rice University scientists have developed a nanoparticle-based solution that reliably removes more than 99 percent of the emulsified oil that remains after other processing is done.
The Rice lab of chemical engineer Sibani Lisa Biswal made a magnetic nanoparticle compound that efficiently separates crude oil droplets from produced water that have proven difficult to remove with current methods.

An August 15, 2018 Rice University news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, describes the work in more detail,

Produced water [emphasis mine] comes from production wells along with oil. It often includes chemicals and surfactants pumped into a reservoir to push oil to the surface from tiny pores or cracks, either natural or fractured, deep underground. Under pressure and the presence of soapy surfactants, some of the oil and water form stable emulsions that cling together all the way back to the surface.

While methods exist to separate most of the oil from the production flow, engineers at Shell Global Solutions, which sponsored the project, told Biswal and her team that the last 5 percent of oil tends to remain stubbornly emulsified with little chance to be recovered.

“Injected chemicals and natural surfactants in crude oil can oftentimes chemically stabilize the oil-water interface, leading to small droplets of oil in water which are challenging to break up,” said Biswal, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and of materials science and nanoengineering.

The Rice lab’s experience with magnetic particles and expertise in amines, courtesy of former postdoctoral researcher and lead author Qing Wang, led it to combine techniques. The researchers added amines to magnetic iron nanoparticles. Amines carry a positive charge that helps the nanoparticles find negatively charged oil droplets. Once they do, the nanoparticles bind the oil. Magnets are then able to pull the droplets and nanoparticles out of the solution.

“It’s often hard to design nanoparticles that don’t simply aggregate in the high salinities that are typically found in reservoir fluids, but these are quite stable in the produced water,” Biswal said.

The enhanced nanoparticles were tested on emulsions made in the lab with model oil as well as crude oil.

In both cases, researchers inserted nanoparticles into the emulsions, which they simply shook by hand and machine to break the oil-water bonds and create oil-nanoparticle bonds within minutes. Some of the oil floated to the top, while placing the test tube on a magnet pulled the infused nanotubes to the bottom, leaving clear water in between.

Best of all, Biswal said, the nanoparticles can be washed with a solvent and reused while the oil can be recovered. The researchers detailed six successful charge-discharge cycles of their compound and suspect it will remain effective for many more.

She said her lab is designing a flow-through reactor to process produced water in bulk and automatically recycle the nanoparticles. That would be valuable for industry and for sites like offshore oil rigs, where treated water could be returned to the ocean.

It seems to me that ‘produced water’ is another term for polluted water.I guess it’s the reverse to Shakespeare’s “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” with polluted water by any other name seeming more palatable.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Recyclable amine-functionalized magnetic nanoparticles for efficient demulsification of crude oil-in-water emulsions by Qing Wang, Maura C. Puerto, Sumedh Warudkar, Jack Buehler, and Sibani L. Biswal. Environ. Sci.: Water Res. Technol., 2018, Advance Article DOI: 10.1039/C8EW00188J First published on 15 Aug 2018

This paper is behind a paywall.

Rice has included this image amongst others in their news release,

Rice University engineers have developed magnetic nanoparticles that separate the last droplets of oil from produced water at wells. The particles draw in the bulk of the oil and are then attracted to the magnet, as demonstrated here. Photo by Jeff Fitlow

There’s also this video, which, in my book, borders on magical,

3D printed all liquid electronics

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Even after watching the video, I still don’t quite believe it. A March 28, 2018 news item on ScienceDaily announces the work,

Scientists from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab [or LBNL]) have developed a way to print 3-D structures composed entirely of liquids. Using a modified 3-D printer, they injected threads of water into silicone oil — sculpting tubes made of one liquid within another liquid.

They envision their all-liquid material could be used to construct liquid electronics that power flexible, stretchable devices. The scientists also foresee chemically tuning the tubes and flowing molecules through them, leading to new ways to separate molecules or precisely deliver nanoscale building blocks to under-construction compounds.

A March 28, 2018 Berkeley Lab March 26, 2018 news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, describe the work in more detail,

The researchers have printed threads of water between 10 microns and 1 millimeter in diameter, and in a variety of spiraling and branching shapes up to several meters in length. What’s more, the material can conform to its surroundings and repeatedly change shape.

“It’s a new class of material that can reconfigure itself, and it has the potential to be customized into liquid reaction vessels for many uses, from chemical synthesis to ion transport to catalysis,” said Tom Russell, a visiting faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division. He developed the material with Joe Forth, a postdoctoral researcher in the Materials Sciences Division, as well as other scientists from Berkeley Lab and several other institutions. They report their research March 24 [2018] in the journal Advanced Materials.

The material owes its origins to two advances: learning how to create liquid tubes inside another liquid, and then automating the process.

For the first step, the scientists developed a way to sheathe tubes of water in a special nanoparticle-derived surfactant that locks the water in place. The surfactant, essentially soap, prevents the tubes from breaking up into droplets. Their surfactant is so good at its job, the scientists call it a nanoparticle supersoap.

The supersoap was achieved by dispersing gold nanoparticles into water and polymer ligands into oil. The gold nanoparticles and polymer ligands want to attach to each other, but they also want to remain in their respective water and oil mediums. The ligands were developed with help from Brett Helms at the Molecular Foundry, a DOE Office of Science User Facility located at Berkeley Lab.

In practice, soon after the water is injected into the oil, dozens of ligands in the oil attach to individual nanoparticles in the water, forming a nanoparticle supersoap. These supersoaps jam together and vitrify, like glass, which stabilizes the interface between oil and water and locks the liquid structures in position.

“This stability means we can stretch water into a tube, and it remains a tube. Or we can shape water into an ellipsoid, and it remains an ellipsoid,” said Russell. “We’ve used these nanoparticle supersoaps to print tubes of water that last for several months.”

Next came automation. Forth modified an off-the-shelf 3-D printer by removing the components designed to print plastic and replacing them with a syringe pump and needle that extrudes liquid. He then programmed the printer to insert the needle into the oil substrate and inject water in a predetermined pattern.

“We can squeeze liquid from a needle, and place threads of water anywhere we want in three dimensions,” said Forth. “We can also ping the material with an external force, which momentarily breaks the supersoap’s stability and changes the shape of the water threads. The structures are endlessly reconfigurable.”

This image illustrates how the water is printed,

These schematics show the printing of water in oil using a nanoparticle supersoap. Gold nanoparticles in the water combine with polymer ligands in the oil to form an elastic film (nanoparticle supersoap) at the interface, locking the structure in place. (Credit: Berkeley Lab)

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Reconfigurable Printed Liquids by Joe Forth, Xubo Liu, Jaffar Hasnain, Anju Toor, Karol Miszta, Shaowei Shi, Phillip L. Geissler, Todd Emrick, Brett A. Helms, Thomas P. Russell. Advanced Materials https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201707603 First published: 24 March 2018

This paper is behind a paywall.

Better and greener oil recovery

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A June 27, 2016 news item on phys.org describes research on achieving better oil recovery,

As oil producers struggle to adapt to lower prices, getting as much oil as possible out of every well has become even more important, despite concerns from nearby residents that some chemicals used to boost production may pollute underground water resources.

Researchers from the University of Houston have reported the discovery of a nanotechnology-based solution that could address both issues – achieving 15 percent tertiary oil recovery at low cost, without the large volume of chemicals used in most commercial fluids.

A June 27, 2016 University of Houston news release (also on EurekAlert) by Jeannie Kever, which originated the news item, provides more detail,

The solution – graphene-based Janus amphiphilic nanosheets – is effective at a concentration of just 0.01 percent, meeting or exceeding the performance of both conventional and other nanotechnology-based fluids, said Zhifeng Ren, MD Anderson Chair professor of physics. Janus nanoparticles have at least two physical properties, allowing different chemical reactions on the same particle.

The low concentration and the high efficiency in boosting tertiary oil recovery make the nanofluid both more environmentally friendly and less expensive than options now on the market, said Ren, who also is a principal investigator at the Texas Center for Superconductivity at UH. He is lead author on a paper describing the work, published June 27 [2016] in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Our results provide a novel nanofluid flooding method for tertiary oil recovery that is comparable to the sophisticated chemical methods,” they wrote. “We anticipate that this work will bring simple nanofluid flooding at low concentration to the stage of oilfield practice, which could result in oil being recovered in a more environmentally friendly and cost-effective manner.”

In addition to Ren, researchers involved with the project include Ching-Wu “Paul” Chu, chief scientist at the Texas Center for Superconductivity at UH; graduate students Dan Luo and Yuan Liu; researchers Feng Wang and Feng Cao; Richard C. Willson, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering; and Jingyi Zhu, Xiaogang Li and Zhaozhong Yang, all of Southwest Petroleum University in Chengdu, China.

The U.S. Department of Energy estimates as much as 75 percent of recoverable reserves may be left after producers capture hydrocarbons that naturally rise to the surface or are pumped out mechanically, followed by a secondary recovery process using water or gas injection.

Traditional “tertiary” recovery involves injecting a chemical mix into the well and can recover between 10 percent and 20 percent, according to the authors.

But the large volume of chemicals used in tertiary oil recovery has raised concerns about potential environmental damage.

“Obviously simple nanofluid flooding (containing only nanoparticles) at low concentration (0.01 wt% or less) shows the greatest potential from the environmental and economic perspective,” the researchers wrote.

Previously developed simple nanofluids recover less than 5 percent of the oil when used at a 0.01 percent concentration, they reported. That forces oil producers to choose between a higher nanoparticle concentration – adding to the cost – or mixing with polymers or surfactants.

In contrast, they describe recovering 15.2 percent of the oil using their new and simple nanofluid at that concentration – comparable to chemical methods and about three times more efficient than other nanofluids.

Dan Luo, a UH graduate student and first author on the paper, said when the graphene-based fluid meets with the brine/oil mixture in the reservoir, the nanosheets in the fluid spontaneously go to the interface, reducing interfacial tension and helping the oil flow toward the production well.

Ren said the solution works in a completely new way.

“When it is injected, the solution helps detach the oil from the rock surface,” he said. Under certain hydrodynamic conditions, the graphene-based fluid forms a strong elastic and recoverable film at the oil and water interface, instead of forming an emulsion, he said.

Researchers said the difference is due to the asymmetric property of the 2-dimensional material. Nanoparticles are usually either hydrophobic – water-repelling, like oil – or hydrophilic, water-like, said Feng Wang, a post-doctoral researcher who shared first author-duties with Luo.

“Ours is both,” he said. “Ours is Janus and also strictly amphiphilic.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Nanofluid of graphene-based amphiphilic Janus nanosheets for tertiary or enhanced oil recovery: High performance at low concentration by Dan Luo, Feng Wang, Jingyi Zhu, Feng Cao, Yuan Liu, Xiaogang Li, Richard C. Willson, Zhaozhong Yang, Ching-Wu Chu, and Zhifeng Ren. PNAS 2016 doi: 10.1073/pnas.1608135113 published ahead of print June 27, 2016,

This paper is behind a paywall.

Oily nanodiamonds

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Nanodiamonds if successfully extracted from oil could be used for imaging and communications and the world’s leading program for extracting nanodiamonds (also known as diamondoids) is in California (US). From a May 12, 2016 news item on Nanowerk,

Stanford and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory jointly run the world’s leading program for isolating and studying diamondoids — the tiniest possible specks of diamond. Found naturally in petroleum fluids, these interlocking carbon cages weigh less than a billionth of a billionth of a carat (a carat weighs about the same as 12 grains of rice); the smallest ones contain just 10 atoms.

Over the past decade, a team led by two Stanford-SLAC faculty members — Nick Melosh, an associate professor of materials science and engineering and of photon science, and Zhi-Xun Shen, a professor of photon science and of physics and applied physics – has found potential roles for diamondoids in improving electron microscope images, assembling materials and printing circuits on computer chips. The team’s work takes place within SIMES, the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, which is run jointly with SLAC.

Close-up of purified diamondoids on a lab bench. Too small to see with the naked eye, diamondoids are visible only when they clump together in fine, sugar-like crystals like these. Photo: Christopher Smith, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Close-up of purified diamondoids on a lab bench. Too small to see with the naked eye, diamondoids are visible only when they clump together in fine, sugar-like crystals like these. Photo: Christopher Smith, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

A March 31, 2016 Stanford University news release by Glennda Chui, which originated the news item, describes the work in more detail,

Before they can do that [use nanodiamonds in imaging and other applications], though, just getting the diamondoids is a technical feat. It starts at the nearby Chevron refinery in Richmond, California, with a railroad tank car full of crude oil from the Gulf of Mexico. “We analyzed more than a thousand oils from around the world to see which had the highest concentrations of diamondoids,” says Jeremy Dahl, who developed key diamondoid isolation techniques with fellow Chevron researcher Robert Carlson before both came to Stanford — Dahl as a physical science research associate and Carlson as a visiting scientist.

The original isolation steps were carried out at the Chevron refinery, where the selected crudes were boiled in huge pots to concentrate the diamondoids. Some of the residue from that work came to a SLAC lab, where small batches are repeatedly boiled to evaporate and isolate molecules of specific weights. These fluids are then forced at high pressure through sophisticated filtration systems to separate out diamondoids of different sizes and shapes, each of which has different properties.

The diamondoids themselves are invisible to the eye; the only reason we can see them is that they clump together in fine, sugar-like crystals. “If you had a spoonful,” Dahl says, holding a few in his palm, “you could give 100 billion of them to every person on Earth and still have some left over.”

Recently, the team started using diamondoids to seed the growth of flawless, nano-sized diamonds in a lab at Stanford. By introducing other elements, such as silicon or nickel, during the growing process, they hope to make nanodiamonds with precisely tailored flaws that can produce single photons of light for next-generation optical communications and biological imaging.

Early results show that the quality of optical materials grown from diamondoid seeds is consistently high, says Stanford’s Jelena Vuckovic, a professor of electrical engineering who is leading this part of the research with Steven Chu, professor of physics and of molecular and cellular physiology.

“Developing a reliable way of growing the nanodiamonds is critical,” says Vuckovic, who is also a member of Stanford Bio-X. “And it’s really great to have that source and the grower right here at Stanford. Our collaborators grow the material, we characterize it and we give them feedback right away. They can change whatever we want them to change.”

Sensing fuel leaks and fuel-based explosives with a nanofibril composite

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A March 28, 2016 news item on Nanowerk highlights some research from the University of Utah (US),

Alkane fuel is a key ingredient in combustible material such as gasoline, airplane fuel, oil — even a homemade bomb. Yet it’s difficult to detect and there are no portable scanners available that can sniff out the odorless and colorless vapor.

But University of Utah engineers have developed a new type of fiber material for a handheld scanner that can detect small traces of alkane fuel vapor, a valuable advancement that could be an early-warning signal for leaks in an oil pipeline, an airliner, or for locating a terrorist’s explosive.

A March 25, 2016 University of Utah news release, which originated the news item, provides a little more detail,

Currently, there are no small, portable chemical sensors to detect alkane fuel vapor because it is not chemically reactive. The conventional way to detect it is with a large oven-sized instrument in a lab.

“It’s not mobile and very heavy,” Zang [Ling Zang, University of Utah materials science and engineering professor] says of the larger instrument. “There’s no way it can be used in the field. Imagine trying to detect the leak from a gas valve or on the pipelines. You ought to have something portable.”

So Zang’s team developed a type of fiber composite that involves two nanofibers transferring electrons from one to the other.

That kind of interaction would then signal the detector that the alkane vapor is present. Vaporsens, a University of Utah spinoff company, has designed a prototype of the handheld detector with an array of 16 sensor materials that will be able to identify a broad range of chemicals including explosives.  This new composite material will be incorporated into the sensor array to include the detection of alkanes. Vaporsens plans to introduce the device on the market in about a year and a half, says Zang, who is the company’s chief science officer.

Such a small sensor device that can detect alkane vapor will benefit three main categories:

  • Oil pipelines. If leaks from pipelines are not detected early enough, the resulting leaked oil could contaminate the local environment and water sources. Typically, only large leaks in pipelines can be detected if there is a drop in pressure. Zang’s portable sensor — when placed along the pipeline — could detect much smaller leaks before they become bigger.
  • Airplane fuel tanks. Fuel for aircraft is stored in removable “bladders” made of flexible fabric. The only way a leak can be detected is by seeing the dyed fuel seeping from the plane and then removing the bladder to inspect it. Zang’s sensors could be placed around the bladder to warn a pilot if a leak is occurring in real time and where it is located.
  • Security. The scanner will be designed to locate the presence of explosives such as bombs at airports or in other buildings. Many explosives, such as the bomb used in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, use fuel oils like diesel as one of its major components. These fuel oils are forms of alkane.

The research was funded by the Department of Homeland Security, National Science Foundation and NASA. The lead author of the paper is University of Utah materials science and engineering doctoral student Chen Wang, and [Benjamin] Bunes is the co-author.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Interfacial Donor–Acceptor Nanofibril Composites for Selective Alkane Vapor Detection by Chen Wang, Benjamin R. Bunes, Miao Xu, Na Wu, Xiaomei Yang, Dustin E. Gross, and Ling Zang. ACS Sens DOI: 10.1021/acssensors.6b00018 Publication Date (Web): March 09, 2016

Copyright © 2016 American Chemical Society

This paper is behind a paywall.

Improve car performance with graphene balls

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Lubrication is vital for car engines and it can be expensive when you get it wrong or when it’s not as effective as it could be. A Jan. 25, 2016 news item on Nanowerk highlights some research focused on improving the quality of engine lubrication,

When an automobile’s engine is improperly lubricated, it can be a major hit to the pocketbook and the environment.

For the average car, 15 percent of the fuel consumption is spent overcoming friction in the engine and transmission. When friction is high, gears have to work harder to move. This means the car burns more fuel and emits more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

“Every year, millions of tons of fuel are wasted because of friction,” said Northwestern Engineering’s Jiaxing Huang, associate professor of materials science and engineering. “It’s a serious problem.”

While oil helps reduce this friction, people have long searched for additives that enhance oil’s performance. Huang and his collaborators discovered that crumpled graphene balls are an extremely promising lubricant additive. In a series of tests, oil modified with crumpled graphene balls outperformed some commercial lubricants by 15 percent, both in terms of reducing friction and the degree of wear on steel surfaces.

A Jan. 25, 2015 McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University news release, which originated the news item, provides more information about the team’s work,

About five years ago, Huang discovered crumpled graphene balls — a novel type of ultrafine particles that resemble crumpled paper balls. The particles are made by drying tiny water droplets with graphene-based sheets inside. “Capillary force generated by the evaporation of water crumples the sheets into miniaturized paper balls,” Huang said. “Just like how we crumple a piece of paper with our hands.”

Shortly after making this discovery, Huang explained it to Chung [Yip-Wah Chung, professor of materials science and engineering] during a lunch in Hong Kong by crumpling a napkin and juggling it. “When the ball landed on the table, it rolled,” Chung recalled. “It reminded me of ball bearings that roll between surfaces to reduce friction.”

That “a-ha!” moment led to a collaboration among the two professors and Wang, who was in the middle of editing a new Encyclopedia of Tribology with Chung.

Nanoparticles, particularly carbon nanoparticles, previously have been studied to help increase the lubrication of oil. The particles, however, do not disperse well in oil and instead tend to clump together, which makes them less effective for lubrication. The particles may jam between the gear’s surfaces causing severe aggregation that increases friction and wear. To overcome this problem, past researchers have modified the particles with extra chemicals, called surfactants, to make them disperse. But this still doesn’t entirely solve the problem.

“Under friction, the surfactant molecules can rub off and decompose,” Chung said. “When that happens, the particles clump up again.”

Because of their unique shape, crumpled graphene balls self-disperse without needing surfactants that are attracted to oil. With their pointy surfaces, they are unable to make close contact with the other graphene balls. Even when they are squeezed together, they easily separate again when disturbed.

Huang and his team also found that performance of crumpled graphene balls is not sensitive to their concentrations in the oil. “A few are already sufficient, and if you increase the concentration by 10 times, performance is about the same,” Huang said. “For all other carbon additives, such performance is very sensitive to concentration. You have to find the sweet spot.”

“The problem with finding a sweet spot is that, during operation, the local concentration of particles near the surfaces under lubrication could fluctuate,” Wang [Q. Jane Wang, professor of mechanical engineering] added. “This leads to unstable performance for most other additive particles.”

Next, the team plans to explore the additional benefit of using crumpled graphene balls in oil: they can also be used as carriers. Because the ball-like particles have high surface area and open spaces, they are good carriers for materials with other functions, such as corrosion inhibition.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Self-dispersed crumpled graphene balls in oil for friction and wear reduction by Xuan Dou, Andrew R. Koltonow, Xingliang He, Hee Dong Jang, Qian Wang, Yip-Wah Chung, and Jiaxing Huang. PNAS 2016 doi:10 .1038/srep03863 Published ahead of print January 25, 2016

This paper is behind a paywall.

One final comment, it’s a bit unusual to see the term ‘carbon nanoparticle’. Generally speaking, carbon nanoparticles seem to have their own names, graphene, carbon nanotubes, and buckminsterfullerenes come to mind.

Oilsands, pipelines, and coastlines at Vancouver’s (Canada) Café Scientifique on Feb. 24, 2015

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Vancouver’s next Café Scientifique is being held in the back room of the The Railway Club (2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. [at Seymour St.], Vancouver, Canada), on Feb. 24,  2015. Here’s the meeting description (from the Feb. 9, 2015 announcement),

Our speaker for the evening will be Dr. Kyle Demes, a Hakai Postdoctoral Fellow in the Coastal Marine Ecology and Conservation lab at SFU.  The title of his talk is:

Inland Oil Sands and Coastal Ecology

Rising overseas oil demand has contributed to a series of proposed pipeline expansion and construction projects to move bitumen from areas of extraction in the interior of Canada to the coast, where it can be loaded onto tankers for shipment. These proposals represent a focal point of controversy in discussions around energy development, climate change and policy across North America and are one of the largest environmental concerns facing British Columbians. I will discuss the ways in which bitumen extraction, transport and shipment influence coastal marine ecosystems, identifying both potential and certain environmental impacts linked with the acceleration of oil sands operations to our coast. I will also review how well we understand each of these environmental impacts, emphasizing key uncertainties in our knowledge and how these gaps affect our ability to make informed decisions on these controversial proposals.

You can find out more about Kyle Demes here.

Nanomechanics and Applied Nanotechnology PhD candidate position in Norway

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The application deadline is March 19, 2014. Thank you to Zhiliang Zhang  for your March 6, 2014 posting on iMechanica for this information,

NTNU Nanomechanical Lab at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) is looking for a PhD candidate within the field of Nanomechanics-nanotechnology-enabled petroleum engineering. The position is part of a knowledge-building project financed by The Research Council of Norway and industrial partners.

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim undated announcement  provides more details,

NTNU Nanomechanical Lab at the Department of Structural Engineering is looking for a PhD candidate within the field of nanotechnology-enabled petroleum engineering. Two positions are a part of a knowledge-building project financed by The Research Council of Norway, Det norske oljeselskap ASA and Wintershall Holding GmbH. The goal of the project is to design and control nanoparticles enabling interfacial wettability alteration and enhanced flow transport in confined space towards petroleum applications through multiscale experiments and simulations. The PhD candidate will work closely with other specialists involved in the project

…

Applications with CV, possible publications and other scientific works, certified copies of transcripts and reference letters must be submitted electronically via www.jobbnorge.no. Mark your application with ref.no. IVT-59/14.

In case of questions, please visit http://www.ntnu.no/nml and contact Assoc. Prof. Jianying He, jianying.he@ntnu.no, 73594686; Prof. Zhiliang Zhang, zhiliang.zhang@ntnu.no, 73592530; Prof. Ole Torsæter, ole.torsater@ntnu.no, 73594941. No application should be sent to these email addresses

They’re asking for a three-year commitment and a master’s degree (or equivalent) in nanotechnology, material science, mechanical/structural engineering, or related fields and there’s no mention of language skills. Good luck!

I last wrote about Norway and its petroleum interests in a Jan. 22, 2014 post titled: Norwegians hoping to recover leftover oil with nanotechnology-enabled solutions.

“Sensational” 15% can become up to 50% oil recovery rate from dead oil wells with nanoparticle-enhanced water

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Texas, the Middle East, and/or Alberta leap to mind before Norway and China when one thinks of research into oil extraction, which makes this June 14, 2013 news item on Nanwerk about a Norway-China collaboration particularly intriguing,

When petroleum companies abandon an oil well, more than half the reservoir’s oil is usually left behind as too difficult to recover. Now, however, much of the residual oil can be recovered with the help of nanoparticles and a simple law of physics.

Oil to be recovered is confined in tiny pores within rock, often sandstone. Often the natural pressure in a reservoir is so high that the oil flows upwards when drilling reaches the rocks containing the oil.

…

In order to maintain the pressure within a reservoir, oil companies have learned to displace the produced oil by injecting water. This water forces out the oil located in areas near the injection point. The actual injection point may be hundreds or even thousands of metres away from the production well.

Eventually, however, water injection loses its effect. Once the oil from all the easily reached pores has been recovered, water begins emerging from the production well instead of oil, at which point the petroleum engineers have had little choice but to shut down the well.

The petroleum industry and research community have been working for decades on various solutions to increase recovery rates. One group of researchers at the Centre for Integrated Petroleum Research (CIPR) in Bergen, collaborating with researchers in China, has developed a new method for recovering more oil from wells – and not just more, far more. [emphasis mine]

The Chinese scientists had already succeeded in recovering a sensational 15 per cent of the residual oil in their test reservoir when they formed a collaboration with the CIPR researchers to find out what had actually taken place down in the reservoir. Now the Norwegian partner in the collaboration has succeeded in recovering up to 50 per cent of the oil remaining in North Sea rock samples.

The ?, 2013 article (Nanoparticles helping to recover more oil) by Claude R. Olsen/Else Lie. Translation: Darren McKellep/Carol B. Eckmann for the Research Council of Norway, which originated the news item, explains what is left after the easy oil has been extracted and how this news technique squeezes more oil out of the well,

Water in an oil reservoir flows much like the water in a river, accelerating in narrow stretches and slowing where the path widens.

When water is pumped into a reservoir, the pressure difference forces the water away from the injection well and towards the production well through the tiny rock pores. These pores are all interconnected by very narrow tunnel-like passages, and the water accelerates as it squeezes its way through these.

The new method is based on infusing the injection water with particles that are considerably smaller than the tunnel diameters. When the particle-enhanced water reaches a tunnel opening, it will accelerate faster than the particles, leaving the particles behind to accumulate and plug the tunnel entrance, ultimately sealing the tunnel.

This forces the following water to take other paths through the rock’s pores and passages – and in some of these there is oil, which is forced out with the water flow. The result is more oil extracted from the production well and higher profits for the petroleum companies.

The article writers do not provide a description of the nanoparticles but they do describe the genesis of this Norwegian-Sino collaboration,

The idea for this method of oil recovery came from the two Chinese researchers Bo Peng and Ming yuan Li who completed their doctorates in Bergen 10 and 20 years ago, respectively. The University of Bergen and China University of Petroleum in Beijing have been cooperating for over a decade on petroleum research, and this laid the foundation for collaboration on understanding and refining the particle method.

…

At first it was not known if the particles could be used in seawater, since the Chinese had done their trials with river water and onshore oilfields. Trials in Bergen using rock samples from the North Sea showed that the nanoparticles also work in seawater and help to recover an average of 20?30 per cent, and up to 50 per cent, more residual oil.