Mohammad Amin Safarzadeh - Reservoir Studies and Field Development Division, Research Institute of Petroleum Industry, Tehran, Iran
Seyyed Alireza Tabatabaei Nezhad - Department of Chemical Engineering, Sahand University of Technology, Tabriz, Iran
Eghbal Sahraei - Department of Chemical Engineering, Sahand University of Technology, Tabriz, Iran
Mehdi Mohammad Salehi - Department of Chemical Engineering, Sahand University of Technology, Tabriz, Iran

Nanotechnology has the potential to introduce revolutionary changes to several areas of oil and gasindustry such as exploration, production, enhanced oil recovery, and refining. In this paper, the effectof different concentrations of Fe2O3 nanoparticles as a catalyst on the heavy oil viscosity at varioustemperatures is studied. Furthermore, the effect of a mixture of Fe2O3 nanoparticles and steaminjection on heavy oil recovery is studied in laboratory. The experimental tests show that some ofthese nanoparticles decrease the heavy oil viscosity less than 50% at certain concentrations atdifferent temperatures. The reason for this viscosity reduction is that, similar to a catalyst, thesenanoparticles activate some reactions. Our results of steam injection tests show that the injection of aFe2O3 nanoparticle mixture increases heavy oil recovery because of cracking reactions which crackthe C-S, C=C, and C≡C bonds of the heavy components of heavy oil and change them to lightcomponents.The main factor affecting the economics of foam-assisted water alternative gas (FAWAG) process isthe loss of foaming agent by adsorption onto reservoir rocks. In this study, the effects of phases,surfactant concentration, salinity, adsorbents, and sacrificial agent on adsorption density wereinvestigated by special adsorption experiments. Moreover, a series of FAWAG tests were performedto examine the effect of injection rates on final adsorption density and adsorption variation during thetest. A clean and fast spectrophotometric method was used for the determination of sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS) concentration based on the formation of an ion-pair, SDS-Safranin O. Higher SDSadsorption was observed at the first cycle of FAWAG flooding. FAWAG injection rate had nonoticeable effect on the adsorption density. However, using high injection rate decreased thepossibility that gas faces surfactant, and thereby reducing the ultimate oil recovery. The presence ofCLS increases the ultimate oil recovery slightly, while it decreases the adsorption density of SDS by22%.

Foam-assisted Water Alternative Gas, Adsorption, Sacrificial Agent, Mixture Interference Concentration, Oil Recovery