Titanium Dioxide Nanomaterial-Reinforced Particle Gel: Development, Characterization, and Performance Evaluation for Water Shutoff Jobs in Heterogeneous Reservoirs

This current research article aims to fabricate a novel reinforced preformed particle gel to increase oil production and reduce excessive water production. To achieve this objective, the following synthesis procedure was adopted. At the start, the preformed particle gel (PPG) samples were developed with N,N-dimethylacrylamide, acrylic acid, and AMPS as a monomer, and N,N-methylenebisacrylamide was used as a cross-linker. The TiO2 nanomaterial was used as a reinforcing agent to enhance the strength characteristics of PPGs by the free radical polymerization mechanism. To characterize the developed samples, i.e., without reinforced preformed particle gel (WR-PPG) and 0.30 wt % titanium dioxide nanomaterial-reinforced preformed particle gel (NR-PPG), the FT-IR spectra, PXRD, FESEM, EDX, and TGA DTG DSC analytical techniques were used. The developed NR-PPG can absorb distilled water and brine (30 000 ppm) up to 95 and 21 times its dry weight, respectively. Furthermore, a complete evaluation of the swelling behavior was performed using several variable parameters such as salinity, pH, temperature, nanomaterial concentration, and monovalent and multivalent ions. The rheology test confirms the formation of the 3d structure and the toughness modulus (G') of NR-PPG, i.e., 1168 and 2085 Pa, and WR-PPG, i.e., 980 and 1334 Pa, for distilled water and 30 000 ppm brine solution, respectively. Additionally, the long-term temperature stability test of NR-PPG revealed outstanding thermal stability for 130 days at 120 C-degrees in a brine solution containing 30 000 ppm NaCl. Finally, the core flooding test was used to evaluate the performance of NR-PPG and WR-PPG for the application of water shutoff jobs, and the plugging efficiency of 94-97 and 89-95% in terms of permeability reduction was observed for NR-PPG and WR-PPG, respectively. As a result, the newly synthesized novel NR-PPG may improve water shutoff and oil recovery in mature oil fields.