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How physicochemical properties of CNT-OH, SiO2, and TiO2 manipulate multiphase displacement: from interfacial
Kexin Chen1, Wenyuan Wang1, Pengfei Liu1
1College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, PR China; Institute of Hypergravity Science and Technology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, PR China.
None:
Interfacial adsorption by nanoparticle suspensions can reshape multiphase displacement in porous media, but the correspondence between nanoparticle physicochemical systems, interfacial regulation, and displacement modes remains insufficiently resolved. This work systematically compares three representative rigid nanoparticles, namely fibrous hydroxylated carbon nanotubes (CNT-OH), spherical silica nanoparticles (SiO2), and near-spherical titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2), under identical PDMS/silicone oil/0.02 wt% NaCl model conditions. The adsorption consequences at solid-fluid and fluid-fluid interfaces are analyzed through surface characterization, theoretical modeling, interfacial measurements, and microfluidic visualization. For solid-surface adsorption, CNT-OH generates the highest hydrodynamic water-film coverage of 78.9%, whereas SiO2 and TiO2 produce comparable coverages of approximately 61.4%, indicating a stronger capacity of fibrous CNT-OH to promote wetting-film spreading on adsorbed nanostructures. For fluid-fluid interfacial adsorption, CNT-OH produces the largest dynamic interfacial-tension reduction of 10.62 mN/m, followed by TiO2 and SiO2 with reductions of 5.87 and 2.16 mN/m, respectively. Microfluidic displacement experiments are then conducted in homogeneous porous media over capillary numbers from 10-7 to 10-4. At the lowest injection rate of 0.1 μL/min, the final displacement efficiency increases from 62.1% for brine to 82.7% for CNT-OH, 81.7% for SiO2, and 71.4% for TiO2. Pore-scale experiments in heterogeneous media further reveal Haines jumps, snap-off/coalescence cycles, and trapped-oil remobilization as representative displacement events. These results show that CNT-OH promotes post-breakthrough sweep mainly through enhanced wetting-film spreading and fluid-fluid interfacial adsorption, whereas TiO2 more strongly induces capillary instability and droplet fragmentation. This work establishes a mechanistic bridge between nanoparticle interfacial behaviors and macroscopic flow patterns, providing fundamental insight into nanoparticle-assisted displacement in model microfluidic porous media.
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