Tehran - BORNA -The oil industry has always faced multiple technical and economic challenges, with sand production from oil reservoirs being one of the most pressing. This phenomenon leads to equipment erosion, lower recovery rates, higher separation costs, and environmental consequences. Now, an Iranian research team has succeeded in developing a smart nano-composite hydrogel that can simultaneously control sand production, reduce water cut, and improve oil extraction efficiency—a technology that represents a significant step toward sustainable development and advancement of innovative petroleum technologies in the country.
In this context, the present report examines the Iranian smart nano-composite hydrogel: a novel technology that offers a sustainable and efficient solution for improving oil industry performance by controlling sand production, reducing water cut, and increasing recovery rates.
Sand Production Control: The Main Challenge in Oil Extraction
Oil production is consistently accompanied by numerous challenges, one of the most important being sand production in reservoirs. This occurs when fine-grained solid particles are carried into the fluid stream and extracted with oil. Sand production causes severe damage, including pipeline and equipment erosion, higher separation costs, reduced production rates, well blockages, and environmental harm—inflicting millions of dollars in annual losses on the oil industry. For this reason, controlling sand production has always been considered one of the core challenges in reservoir management.
A Smart Solution Through Nanotechnology
According to Iran’s Nanotechnology Headquarters, Mahsa Baghban Salehi from the Institute of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, along with a research team from a technology-based company including Farzin Saqandali, Ali-Asghar Nowzaeem, and Hossein Pahlavani, succeeded in developing a smart nano-composite hydrogel that can not only control sand production but also increase oil recovery and reduce water production.
The main innovation lies in the dual behavior of the hydrogel: it swells in aqueous environments and expands in volume, while it contracts in oil-rich environments. This intelligent property improves oil flow and reduces water production. Furthermore, by altering the zeta potential of sand particles, the hydrogel causes them to adhere together, preventing their free movement in reservoir fluid flows—without inflicting any damage to the formation.
Technical Specifications and Advantages
The nano-composite has a durable and stable three-dimensional structure. The inclusion of nanoparticles provides high mechanical strength and thermal stability, which are essential for harsh and challenging reservoir conditions. The product also performs exceptionally in terms of optimized viscosity for injection, deep reservoir penetration, and strong adhesion to sand particles.
Thus, the smart nano-composite hydrogel not only prevents sand migration and water production but also avoids formation damage, making it a suitable alternative to expensive and sometimes destructive conventional methods. The main end-users of this technology are sandstone reservoirs of the National Iranian Oil Company and private oil operators. The ability to localize and mass-produce this technology also reduces dependence on foreign products.
Competitive Advantages and Global Standing
The Iranian nano-composite hydrogel offers key competitive advantages: the ability to adjust and formulate according to the specific conditions of each reservoir, high thermal and mechanical stability, and self-healing properties even in harsh reservoir environments. Its simultaneous ability to reduce water production and control sand makes it a strategic tool for improving reservoir performance and boosting the economic efficiency of oil extraction.
This achievement not only offers economic savings for the oil industry but also provides an important step toward sustainable development by mitigating environmental impacts. Successful development and commercialization of this technology within Iran can elevate the country’s position in the global market for advanced petroleum technologies, making Iran one of the key players in this field.
The Iranian smart nano-composite hydrogel not only enables economic efficiency and enhanced productivity in oil extraction, but also—with its environmental benefits and potential for domestic production—strengthens Iran’s role in global advanced petroleum technologies. This achievement demonstrates the power of combining research and industrial innovation, showing how nanotechnology and polymer science can provide smart and sustainable solutions to complex oil industry challenges.
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