Nanoemulsion Applications in Enhanced Oil Recovery and Wellbore Cleaning: An Overview

This article is an overview of potential applications of nanoemulsion as a promising candidates for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and as a medium for wellbore cleaning. Nanoemulsion is an emulsion that has nanosize particle distributions in the range of below 500 nm. It also has lower interfacial tension (IFT) as low as the value of 0.001 mN/m. The small particle size distributions in nanoemulsion resulted the good properties of nanoemulsion in term of large surface area. This excellent property will improve the sweeping efficiency of the oil droplet in the reservoir and finally increase the oil recovery. Besides that, the unique features possess by nanoemulsion make it suitable as superior wellbore cleaner as compared to conventional detergent-based cleaner. Thus, the significance of nanoemulsion becomes the major highlight in oil and gas industry. This overview on nanoemulsion applications is imperative and necessary in order to provide an insight for the future development and perhaps open a door to extend the applications of nanoemulsion to other more challenging areas.