Multicolor Fluorescent Silica Nanoparticles as Tracers for Production and Well Monitoring

Abstract

Abstract Tracers play an important role in the oil and gas industry by providing valuable information about reservoirs. In particular, tracers can help in mapping water movementfor determining information on water flooding that can be used to improve hydrocarbon recovery efforts. Some of the challenges associated with current chemical or dye-based tracer technology are thermal degradation over time, phase separation, and tedious detection processes. To overcome these drawbacks environmentally friendly, multicolor silica nanoparticles as tracershavebeen proposed toprovide simpler and faster detection through fluorescence spectroscopy.