The Effect of Nickel to Zinc Ratio in Nickel-Zinc-Ferrites Nanoparticles on Its Magnetisation for Application in Enhanced Oil Recovery

The inability of natural drive mechanism of the reservoir to produce oil to the surface is the major problem faced by the oil and gas industry today. This research is mainly focusing on the method to recover the remaining oil after secondary recovery which is the Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) method. EOR method is essential in oil and gas industry nowadays since the natural drive mechanism can no longer bring up oil to the surface after time of production increases. In this study, the influence of magnetic nanoparticles on the oil recovery efficiency is being observed. The magnetic nanoparticles that are being used is Nickel-Zinc-Ferrites. The main objectives is to synthesis Nickel-Zinc-Ferrite magnetic nanoparticles into five different ratios of Nickel to Zinc by using Sol-Gel method. Then, the nanoparticles will be characterized using Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM) and Vibrating Sample Magnometer (VSM). The sample of X=0.5 shows highest magnetization which is 61.9 emu/g out of five samples which is annealed at 900OC. The samples that annealed at 900 OC shows better magnetic saturation compared to the samples annealed at 700OC. Later, the nanofluid will be prepared using the deionised water as the dispersing fluid to be injected into the core sample in the core flooding experiment. This core flooding experiment will measure the oil recovery efficiency by evaluating the produced oil from the core sample after the secondary recovery stage. The sample X=0.5 shows highest oil recovery which is about 16% from Residual Oil in Place (ROIP). Thus, the highest magnetization among the five samples of the magnetic nanoparticles which will affect the oil recovery was determined and the objective was achieved.