Recent Advances in Oilfield Chemistry and Enhanced Oil Recovery

Dear Colleagues,

Oilfield chemistry plays a crucial role in improving hydrocarbon recovery, regulating fluid-fluid and fluid-rock interactions, and enhancing the efficiency and sustainability of petroleum production. In particular, the development of advanced chemical agents and functional materials has become increasingly important for the efficient exploitation of unconventional reservoirs under harsh conditions. Recent advances in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) have highlighted the importance of molecular design and interfacial chemistry in developing high-performance chemical systems for challenging reservoir conditions. Meanwhile, the rapid development of computational chemistry and data-driven technologies is providing new perspectives for understanding and optimizing oilfield chemical processes. Integrating experiments, molecular simulations, and artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to provide a powerful framework for the rational design of next-generation oilfield chemical systems.

This Special Issue, “Recent Advances in Oilfield Chemistry and Enhanced Oil Recovery”, aims to showcase the latest scientific progress in fundamental research, advanced chemical materials, innovative nanotechnologies, and AI-assisted EOR methods for oilfield applications. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Advanced chemicals and interfacial phenomena;
• Foam flooding and foam-based mobility and conformance control;
• Nanoparticles and nanofluid-based EOR;
• Low-salinity flooding and water chemistry;
• Computational chemistry and machine learning for oilfield chemistry and EOR;
• CO₂-EOR and the integration of EOR and CCUS;
• Green, sustainable, and environmentally compatible oilfield chemicals.

The Special Issue welcomes original research articles, reviews, communications, and perspectives that advance understanding and application of oilfield chemistry and stimulate new directions in developing high-performance, sustainable oilfield chemical technologies.

Dr. Jihui Jia
Dr. Lu Lai
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.