A review of nanomaterials and their applications in oil & petroleum industries

The swiftly growing global economies remain the root cause of the soaring demand for oil and gas to satisfy their excessive energy demands, thus making the oil and gas sector one of the most important industrial sectors. Though renewable energy technologies are the more sustainable option, technological advances are required to make them more accessible to the common people. Therefore, due to the limitation of renewable energy technologies, oil and gas continue to be a more viable alternative. Extensive research is being conducted on the applications of nanotechnology to make the upstream, midstream, and downstream processes efficient in the oil and gas sector. Nanomaterials make the activities in processing and transportation more economical, efficient, and environment-friendly than their conventional counterparts. In this review, we have highlighted the need for nanomaterials in oil and gas, for example, in crude oil exploration, including drilling and EOR, separation techniques, refining, transportation, and other related activities. Further, this review summarizes novel nanomaterials developed and used in the activities mentioned above, and at the end, we have briefly described the synthesis mechanism of these nanomaterials. Finally, we emphasize the current challenges and future work prospects in this area of study.