Improvement of Nanoparticles Surfaces for Defining Water/Crude Oil Interface

Modification of Zinc Oxide surface was conducted using Oleic Acid coating and
Silica Dioxide coating. After the completion of surface modification, the
nanoparticles are evaluated using Zeta Potential measurement to verify the
successfulness and the stability of surface-modified nanoparticles. The nanoparticle
Zinc Oxide was chosen to be the base for the coating because it has been proven
from previous experiment to aggregate best at the interface when is compared with
other metal oxides nanoparticle, but may still needs improvement to improve its
stability at the interface. The purpose of this experiment is to study the possibility of
the surface-modified nanoparticles to aggregate at the water/crude oil interface using
different type of crude oil. The crude oil use in this experiment is consists of Miri
light crude oil, medium crude of Kikeh Crude and heavy crude oil Castilla Crude.
Additionally, this research will help explore the possibility to assist the monitoring of
the formation flood front. Using resistivity as one of the parameter would help in the
monitoring of the nanoparticles to identify the absence and presence of the
nanoparticles at the flood front. Unfortunately, the finding did not produce the
expected result. There was little aggregation at the water/oil interface and the
resistivity measured was not significant in comparison with previous
experimentation. However, this study has help to see the relationship of zeta
potential to the aggregation at the water/crude oil interface and the behaviour of
surface-coated nanoparticles in different type of crude oil.