Effect of nanoparticles and pre-shearing on the performance of water-soluble polymers flow in porous media

Polymer flooding is a commercially viable chemical enhanced oil recovery (cEOR) method. It includes the injection of water-soluble polymers into a reservoir to improve the drive water viscosity and consequently to increase the sweep and displacement efficiency of the water. Despite the success in both laboratory and field applications, there are still some challenges associated with the application of polymers for cEOR. The first challenge is that the implementation of conventional polymers used for cEOR at high salinity, hardness, and temperature reservoirs is difficult and costly because of the viscosity loss and polymer precipitation at these harsh conditions. The second challenge concerns the injectivity of the polymers. Long polymer chains tend to block the small pores which leads to a time-dependent injectivity decline. This thesis investigates the potential solutions to address these two challenges in order to improve the performance of water-soluble polymers.