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Reservoir Nanoagents for In-Situ Sensing and Intervention

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Nanorobotics

Abstract

Nanotechnology is often associated with the alternate clean energy technologies of tomorrow, from the super efficient solar and fuel cells to hydrogen economy and the extreme lasting batteries. As only recently, the Oil and Gas industry started uncovering the great potentials of this field for its use, upstream E&P professionals need to be able to clarify facts from misconceptions and have a basic understanding of the physical phenomena that govern the behavior of things at the nanoscale. This chapter introduces the potentials of nanotechnology in E&P. It highlights current and anticipated benefits in the upstream sector and explores the feasibility of having molecular agents (Resbots) in the subsurface. The future reality of reservoir nanoagents is demonstrated in a suite of nanofluid coreflood experiments targeting stability and survivability of the nanoagents at reservoir conditions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Upstream E&P is one of the major sectors of the petroleum (or oil and gas, O&G) industry. E&P refers to Exploration and Production. The sector is concerned with the discovery of, the drilling for, and the production and recovery of oil and gas from the subsurface.

  2. 2.

    In this chapter, unless otherwise specified, the term industry refers to the O&G industry.

  3. 3.

    The term Resbots was coined at Saudi Aramco in 2006 to reflect on the futuristic reservoir nanorobots concept.

  4. 4.

    Given constancy of stress and material strength, the strength of a structure and the force it applies scale with the object’s cross-sectional area (i.e., Strength ∝ ℓ 2).

  5. 5.

    Typically, Re is much less than 1 at the nanoscale [10] and much less than 100 at the microscale [11].

  6. 6.

    A rock core plug measures about 1. 5 in. in diameter and 3 in. in height.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Saudi Aramco, Dhahran, KSA, 31311, Saudi Arabia

    Mazen Y. Kanj

Authors
  1. Mazen Y. Kanj
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Correspondence to Mazen Y. Kanj .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Dept. of Mechanical and Industrial Eng., Northeastern University, Huntington Avenue 360, Boston, 02115, USA

    Constantinos Mavroidis

  2. ENSI Bourges, Institut PRISME, 88 Boulevard Lahitolle, Bourges, 18000, France

    Antoine Ferreira

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Kanj, M.Y. (2013). Reservoir Nanoagents for In-Situ Sensing and Intervention. In: Mavroidis, C., Ferreira, A. (eds) Nanorobotics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2119-1_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2119-1_4

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-2118-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-2119-1

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