Application of Magnetic and Dielectric Nanofluids for Electromagnetic-Assistance Enhanced Oil Recovery: A Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript would be very interesting for readers working on chemical assisted enhanced oil recovery using nanofluids, however, its structure is a bit irregular, and the authors need to consider various subjects without deepening on specific part. The manuscript is very interesting although it presents several issues. I strongly encourage the authors to revise the document, according to the following minor points:

1- Abstract part needs to be further refined to highlight the novelty of this review article, why is this review article important? How does it cover the critical review gap in the literature?  

2- Introduction needs to be reframed and refined instead of listing the works have been done. Relevant works including materials, observations must be included and summarized to enhance the necessity and originality of your work.

3- Authors must discuss the effect of their review on the future applications in the chemical/nanofluid enhanced oil recovery technology. Is this review important? If so, why? What is the economical aspect of using nanofluids for EOR purposes? Is it cost effective? If so, again why?

4- More elaborate discussions of the different results with supporting literature are suggested. Particularly in the introduction section the authors should discuss relevant information/data about applications of chemicals or ILs + CuCl for simultaneously chemical enhanced oil recovery and asphaltene precipitation hindering such as “Journal of Unconventional Oil and Gas Resources, 15, pp.11-21” and “Iranian Journal of Oil & Gas Science and Technology, 1(1), pp.37-42”. The critical role of one of the most surface-active species in crude oil, i.e. asphaltenes, in IFT reduction and wettability alterations in presence of chemicals can also be discussed in this review article. In this article water/asphaltene interactions at interfaces which lead to IFT/Wettability changes have been discussed for your reference: Scientific Reports volume 9, Article number: 11369 (2019).

5- There are some spelling and grammatical errors, and the authors should revise the manuscript carefully.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Manuscript ID: Crystals-1044574

Type of manuscript: Review

Title: Application of Magnetic and Dielectric Nanofluids for Electromagnetic-Assistance Enhanced Oil Recovery: A review

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your kind review of our manuscript. We really appreciate all your valuable comments. Please find below the point-by-point response to the Reviewer’s comments for your kind consideration.

Based on your (and the other reviewers’) professional comments and suggestions, the manuscript is restructured for a better reading experience of the readers. Also, in line with your comments, the entire descriptive analyses of the articles used in this study are combined a single section and made more concise for better and easier reading. Please find in the manuscript responses to reviewer 1’s comments highlighted in blue. Responses to reviewer 2’s comments are highlighted in yellow. Corrections on grammatical and spelling mistakes are written in red.

Point 1: Abstract part needs to be further refined to highlight the novelty of this review article, Why is this review article important? How does it cover the critical review gap in the literature? 

Response 1: Thank you for your comment. Recently, a lot of lab experimental analysis by employing EM-assisted nanofluids flooding for EOR application have been proposed, and the outcome was very satisfactory in the sense that the percentage oil recovered in a porous media for EOR was found to be better than chemical nanoflooding. Significantly, the superiority of EM-assisted nanofluids over bare chemical nanoflooding were evidently manifested owing to the fact that in most analysis the comparison was used to be made between nanoflooding in comparison with EM-assisted nanoflooding. Moreover, the interfacial tension (IFT), wettability alterations were equally observed to be well improved by employing EM-assisted nanofluids. Hence, it is highly significant to evaluate and comprehensively review the published work on that. Please refer to Abstract in our revised manuscript (line 20-24), and Abstract (line 31-34)  

Point 2: Introduction needs to be reframed and refined instead of listing the works have been done. Relevant works including materials, observations must be included and summarized to enhance the necessity and originality of your work.

Response 2: Thank you for your comment. The missing information was included please refer to the Introduction section in our revised manuscript (line 58 – 86)

Pont 3: authors must discuss the effect of their review on the future applications in the chemical/nanofluid enhanced oil recovery technology. Is this review important? If so, why? What is the economical aspect of using nanofluids for EOR purposes? Is it cost effective? If so, again why?

Response 3: Thank you for your comment. The EM-assisted nanoflooding is anticipated to be one of the most realistic methods of improving trapped oil if successfully implemented in the field analysis because nanoflooding currently is considered as one of the most effective approaches for EOR, therefore, the applied energy from the EM source will speed up the mobility of the fluids as a result of which the residual oil can be released. This method is environmentally feasible and economically accommodated because the cost-effectiveness of nanoparticles is very low compared to the cost of chemicals or gas used in the process, there are less damages of incompatibility of nanofluids, no problems of high energy cost, utilizing nanoflooding also has no risk of damaging undesired layers as a result of heat or gas leakage. Please refer to No. 5. Role of electromagnetic in EOR under 5.3 in our revised manuscript (line 356 – 371)

Point 4: More elaborate discussions of the different results with supporting literature are suggested. Particularly in the introduction section the authors should discuss relevant information/data about applications of chemicals or ILs + CuCl for simultaneously chemical enhanced oil recovery and asphaltene precipitation hindering such as “Journal of Unconventional Oil and Gas Resources, 15, pp.11-21” and “Iranian Journal of Oil & Gas Science and Technology, 1(1), pp.37-42”. The critical role of one of the most surface-active species in crude oil, i.e. asphaltenes, in IFT reduction and wettability alterations in presence of chemicals can also be discussed in this review article. In this article water/asphaltene interactions at interfaces which lead to IFT/Wettability changes have been discussed for your reference: Scientific Reportsvolume 9, Article number: 11369 (2019)

Response 4: Thank you for your comment. The missing information was included, please refer to the Introduction section in our revised manuscript (line 87 – 117), however, to the best of our knowledge, the issue of addressing the problems associated with asphaltenes depositions and precipitation on the surface of the solid using chemical nanofluids flooding is still in the early stage of investigation and that is why a specific mechanism in solving the issues is missing and contradictory opinion were made by different authors which are attributed to the complex molecular structure of the asphaltene.

Point 5:There are some spelling and grammatical errors, and the authors should revise the manuscript carefully.

Response 5: Thank you for your comment. The manuscript was carefully revised and the corrections were made accordingly in red color in our revised manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

With respect to this review, I find is comprehensive and takes into consideration most of the aspects concerning the use of nanofluids for EOR. 

I have few comments and questions:

a) A small check of the manuscript editing is needed. For instance:

- table 1 numbering,

- Eqn at page 9, line 302 - is power of 2 for I

b) Table 3 contains experimental data regarding the EM frequency. However, some references are missing this info. Why?

c) I suggest, if possible, to indicate in the Conclusions section some recommendations regarding the most suitable types of nanoparticles (material, size, surfactant) to use for EOR.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Manuscript ID: Crystals-1044574

Type of manuscript: Review

Title: Application of Magnetic and Dielectric Nanofluids for Electromagnetic-Assistance Enhanced Oil Recovery: A review

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your kind review of our manuscript. We really appreciate all your valuable comments. Please find below the point-by-point response to the Reviewer’s comments for your kind consideration. Based on your (and the other reviewers’) professional comments and suggestions, the manuscript is restructured for a better reading experience of the readers. Also, in line with your comments, the entire descriptive analyses of the articles used in this study are combined a single section and made more concise for better and easier reading. Please find in the manuscript responses to reviewer 1’s comments highlighted in blue. Responses to reviewer 2’s comments are highlighted in yellow. Corrections on grammatical and spelling mistakes are written in red.

point 1: A small check of the manuscript editing is needed. For instance:

- table 1 numbering,

- Eqn at page 9, line 302 - is power of 2 for I

Response 1: Thank you for your comment. The corrections are made as requested, please refer to page 7 for table 1, and (line 349) for the eqn. in our revised manuscript.

Point 2: Table 3 contains experimental data regarding the EM frequency. However, some references are missing this info. Why?

Response 2: Thank you for your comment. The reason why the EM frequency is missing in some of the experimental analyses is that some authors did not mention the frequency range used for their analysis such as Ref. 50, 84, 57… from our revised manuscript.

Point 2: I suggest, if possible, to indicate in the Conclusions section some recommendations regarding the most suitable types of nanoparticles (material, size, surfactant) to use for EOR.

Response 3: Thank you for your comment. The missing information is now included in our revised manuscript please refer to Conclusion (line 684 - 687) and (line 690 - 695) in our revised manuscript