Transport and Deposition of Carbon Nanoparticles in Saturated Porous Media

Zhongliang Hu, Jin Zhao, Hui Gao, Ehsan Nourafkan and Dongsheng Wen
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Zhongliang Hu: School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
Jin Zhao: School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
Hui Gao: School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
Ehsan Nourafkan: School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
Dongsheng Wen: School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 8, 1-17

Abstract: Carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) are becoming promising candidates for oil/gas applications due to their biocompatibility and size-dependent optical and electronic properties. Their applications, however, are always associated with the flow of nanoparticles inside a reservoir, i.e., a porous medium, where insufficient studies have been conducted. In this work, we synthesized CNPs with two different size categories in 200 nm carbon balls (CNP-200) and 5 nm carbon dots (CNP-5), via a hydrothermal carbonation process. Comprehensive experiments in packed glass bead columns, as well as mathematical simulations, were conducted to understand the transport and deposition of CNPs under various ionic strength, particle sizes and concentration conditions. Our results show that the retention of CNP-200 is highly sensitive to the salinity and particle concentrations, while both of them are unaffected in the transport of small CNP-5. Supplemented with Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek (DLVO) theory, the clean bed filtration theory with blocking effect can successfully fit the experimental breakthrough curves of CNP-200. However, the high breakthrough ability for CNP-5 regardless of ionic strength change is in conflict with the energy interactions predicted by traditional DLVO theory.

Keywords: nanoparticle transport; carbon nanoparticles; transport mechanism; DLVO theory; size effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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