Plant domestication was a pivotal accomplishment in human history, but also led to a reduction in genetic diversity of crop species compared to their wild ancestors. How this reduced genetic ...diversity affected plant-microbe interactions belowground is largely unknown. Here, we investigated the genetic relatedness, root phenotypic traits and rhizobacterial community composition of modern and wild accessions of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) grown in agricultural soil from the highlands of Colombia, one of the centers of common bean diversification. Diversity Array Technology-based genotyping and phenotyping of local common bean accessions showed significant genetic and root architectural differences between wild and modern accessions, with a higher specific root length for the wild accessions. Canonical Correspondence Analysis indicated that the divergence in rhizobacterial community composition between wild and modern bean accessions is associated with differences in specific root length. Along the bean genotypic trajectory, going from wild to modern, we observed a gradual decrease in relative abundance of Bacteroidetes, mainly Chitinophagaceae and Cytophagaceae, and an increase in relative abundance of Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria, in particular Nocardioidaceae and Rhizobiaceae, respectively. Collectively, these results establish a link between common bean domestication, specific root morphological traits and rhizobacterial community assembly.
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NUK, SBMB, SBNM, UL, UM, UPUK
In this work, we evaluate the effect of nanoparticles and nanofluids as viscosity reducers for heavy crude oil (HO). The effect of alumina, silica and acidic silica nanoparticles was evaluated ...through n-C7 asphaltene adsorption and aggregation tests using UV–vis spectrophotometry and dynamic light scattering. The nanoparticles of acidic silica were used to prepare a water-based nanofluid at different concentrations in distilled water, and also with the addition of 2.0wt% of a non-ionic surfactant. The shear rheological response was obtained as function of nanoparticle concentration, temperature (from 298 to 323K) and shear rate (ranging from 0 to 100s−1). Experimental results indicate that increasing the concentration of nanoparticles in the mixture, up to 10,000ppm, leads to a viscosity reduction of approximately 90% in comparison with the nanoparticle-free crude oil. At higher concentration of nanoparticles, the effectiveness of the heavy-oil viscosity reduction diminishes. Rheological tests showed a non-Newtonian behavior for the mixtures tested at 298K. However, as the temperature reaches 323K the specimens behave in a Newtonian fashion. Coreflooding tests were conducted under typical reservoir conditions of pore and overburden pressures, i.e. 2600 and 3600psi, respectively, and at 360K. Results indicate that the addition of nanoparticles increases the heavy oil mobility and leads to an improvement in oil recovery of roughly 16%.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
During the early 21st century, nanotechnology has stood strong in the oil and gas industry, with many applications that have gone from laboratory and numerical simulation studies to successful trial ...applications in the field. In this Review, recent advances of nanofluid and nanoparticle applications in real environments of the oil and gas industry are presented. These applications cover more than 20 wells in Colombia that have been treated to overcome different formation damage mechanisms, such as asphaltene precipitation/deposition, fines migration, and inorganic scale deposition. Also, different approaches to enhance drilling fluids in Canada, Brazil, Iran, and Colombia are examined. In the case of improved oil recovery (IOR), different applications are discussed, including strategies to improve the productivity of heavy crude oil and extra-heavy crude oil reservoirs through enhanced mobility and hydraulic fracturing in Colombia, a field trial for water shutoff in Csongrad-3 formation in the Algyo field in Hungary, nanocapsules injection for wettability alteration, applications of gas injection (N2 and CO2) in the presence of nanoparticles in Austin chalk, Buda and Eagle Ford formations in the United States, and the use of nanoparticle-assisted foams for well dewatering in China. For secondary and tertiary recovery, we explore the design and implementation of A-Dots and carbon quantum dots as tracers in Saudi Arabia and Colombia, respectively, hydrophobic nanoparticles as drag reducers in injector wells in China, and nanofluids for enhancing chemical enhanced oil recovery processes in southern Colombia. It is worth mentioning that the results were based on oil production and reserves derived from production curves and analysis of the declination curves. Finally, challenges and perspectives of the role of nanotechnology in the oil and gas industry today are discussed.
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Among the Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) methods, gas-based EOR methods are very popular all over the world. The gas injection has a high ability to increase microscopic sweep efficiency and can ...increase production efficiency well. However, it should be noted that in addition to all the advantages of these methods, they have disadvantages such as damage due to asphaltene deposition, unfavorable mobility ratio, and reduced efficiency of macroscopic displacement. In this paper, the gas injection process and its challenges were investigated. Then the overcoming methods of these challenges were investigated. To inhibit asphaltene deposition during gas injection, the use of nanoparticles was proposed, which were examined in two categories: liquid-soluble and gas-soluble, and the limitations of each were examined. Various methods were used to overcome the problem of unfavorable mobility ratio and their advantages and disadvantages were discussed. Gas-phase modification has the potential to reduce the challenges and limitations of direct gas injection and significantly increase recovery efficiency. In the first part, the introduction of gas injection and the enhanced oil recovery mechanisms during gas injection were mentioned. In the next part, the challenges of gas injection, which included unfavorable mobility ratio and asphaltene deposition, were investigated. In the third step, gas-phase mobility control methods investigate, emphasizing thickeners, thickening mechanisms, and field applications of mobility control methods. In the last part, to investigate the effect of nanoparticles on asphaltene deposition and reducing the minimum miscible pressure in two main subsets: 1- use of nanoparticles indirectly to prevent asphaltene deposition and reduce surface tension and 2- use of nanoparticles as a direct asphaltene inhibitor and Reduce MMP of the gas phase in crude oil was investigated.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
The deposition of asphaltenes is one of the most difficult problems to overcome in oil production and processing. The presence of asphaltenes in crude oil, and consequently, the adsorption and ...deposition of asphaltenes on the rock surfaces, affects the rock properties, such as porosity, permeability, and wettability. This study aims at analyzing the effect of the chemical nature of 12 types of nanoparticles on asphaltenes adsorption; hence, the delay or inhibition of deposition and precipitation of asphaltenes on porous media under flow conditions at reservoir pressure and temperature were investigated. The adsorption equilibrium of asphaltenes onto nanoparticles was effectively achieved within relatively short times (approximately 2 min), which indicates the promising nature of adsorbents for delaying the agglomeration and inhibiting the precipitation and deposition of asphaltenes. The adsorption equilibrium of asphaltenes for the nanoparticles was determined using a batch method in the range 150–2000 mg/L. The equilibrium adsorption data were fit to both the Langmuir and Freundlich models. Additionally, in this study, the transport of nanoparticles in a porous media at a typical reservoir pressure and temperature was investigated. As a result, the use of nanoparticles allowed the system to flow successfully, which demonstrated the inhibition of precipitation and deposition and the enhanced perdurability against asphaltene damage in the porous media.
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Asphaltenes exhibit an amphiphlic behavior and tend to form colloidal i-mers, because of their chemical structure. The formation of colloidal aggregates can generate formation damage for the ...precipitation and/or deposition of asphaltenes, because of the degree of self-association, altering the wettability of rock surface and significantly affect crude oil viscosity and specific gravity. This study aims at introducing a novel model for describing, at the macroscopic level, the adsorption equilibria of self-associating molecules such as asphaltenes in solution onto solid surfaces based on the “chemical theory”. The model describes the adsorption isotherms temperature-dependent using three parameters, namely, maximum amount adsorbed, constant of i-mer reactions, and Henry’s law constant. Furthermore, a temperature-independent model of five parameters, based on the modifications of the constants of reaction and Henry’s law using an Arrhenius-type equation was proposed for estimating the thermodynamics parameters, such as ΔG ads ° , ΔH ads ° , and ΔS ads ° of the adsorption process. This model improves the understanding of interactions asphaltene–asphaltene and asphaltene–solid surface on the adsorption–equilibrium process. The theoretical predictions of isotherms were validated successfully by determining the root mean-square errors (RSM%) between data obtained from published literature and values predicted for asphaltenes and surfaces with differing chemical natures. More than 40 experimental data taken from literature have been used for validating the solid–liquid equilibrium (SLE) model for describing the adsorption isotherm of asphaltenes from different origins on surfaces with different chemical nature, which shows the model robustness due to the complexity of the liquid phase adsorption for those complex molecules.
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•The addition of 1000mg/L of SiO2 nanoparticles simultaneously reduced both viscosity and yield stress of heavy oil.•The nanoparticles interact directly with the asphaltenes and hence ...with the viscoelastic network.•The presence of nanoparticles in the matrix of heavy oil generates a change in the internal structure of the fluid.•The results obtained confirm that nanoparticles affect the internal structure of heavy oil, by modifying the viscoelastic network of asphaltenes.
Nanotechnology offers potentially disruptive methods to improve the mobility of heavy oil through viscosity reduction. In this sense, the objective of this work is to probe changes in the viscoelastic network of asphaltenes intrinsic to heavy oil structure upon addition of fumed SiO2 nanoparticles, using dynamic rheological techniques. The effects of the addition of nanoparticle (100, 1000 and 10,000mg/L) on heavy oil are patently reflected as a viscosity reduction (for shear rates between 0 and 100s−1) and a non-Newtonian shear thinning behavior. The best concentration of nanoparticles over the wide range evaluated is obtained at 1000mg/L, which was evaluated at 288, 298 and 313K. The viscosity reductions were found to range from 12 to 45% in the shear rate range 0–100s−1. The linear viscoelastic region (LVR) was determined by running an amplitude sweep test at 10rad/s and 298K. Viscoelastic moduli were measured in dynamic tests in a frequency range from 0.1 to 100rad/s at a strain of 2% and at temperatures of 288, 298 and 313K. For heavy crude oil without nanoparticles, the magnitude of the loss modulus G″ and its growing trend suggest the existence of a viscoelastic network of asphaltenes and auto-associative behavior. For all tests, the loss modulus, G″, is always greater than the storage modulus G′, suggesting that the crude oil is more viscous than elastic, except at 313K and at a frequency > 30rad/s, where G′ is greater than G″. By adding 1000mg/L of nanoparticles, the magnitude of the viscoelastic moduli is reduced compared to values for crude oil without nanoparticles. The results conclusively prove that nanoparticles disrupt the viscoelastic network formed by asphaltenes aggregates in the presence of resins, and this causes the viscosity reduction in heavy crude oil. This conclusion is further supported by results obtained when nanoparticles were added to de-asphalted oil (DAO) and light oil with a low asphaltene content; in both cases the viscosity increases, suggesting that the nanoparticles interact directly with asphaltenes in crude oil. Effects are observed if asphaltenes are present at high enough concentration.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
Heavy and extra-heavy oils generally exhibit high viscosity, which is detrimental to their production, transport, and refining. The oil and gas industry has thoroughly investigated the use of ...chemical agents to improve the mobility of this type of low-quality crude oil at the surface as well as reservoir conditions for many years. In this sense, the main objective of this paper is to provide unexpected experimental evidence of heavy oil and extra-heavy crude oils viscosity reduction resulting from the presence of nanoparticles (NPs) of different chemical natures (SiO2, Fe3O4, and Al2O3), particle size, surface acidity, and concentration at low-volume fractions. The viscosity of the enhanced fluids was measured using a rotational rheometer at shear rates varying between 1 and 75 s–1. Upon addition of nanoparticles, viscosity reduction was observed in all cases evaluated. However, the maximum viscosity reduction of roughly 52% was obtained at a concentration of 1000 mg/L with 7 nm SiO2 nanoparticles at shear rates below 10 s–1, contrary to expectations from Einstein’s viscosity theory in particulate systems. A mathematical model based on a modification to Pal and Rhodes Model for the viscosity of suspensions is proposed in this work. The said model that relates the concentration of nanoparticles to the fluid mixture viscosity was validated successfully using experimental data, as evidenced by RSME% values lower than 10%. The importance of our findings lies in the lack of previous experimental and theoretical data in the open literature showing heavy crude oil viscosity reduction in the presence of nanoparticles.
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The main objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of particle size and surface acidity of synthesized silica gel nanoparticles on the inhibition of formation damage caused by asphaltene ...precipitation/deposition. Silica gel nanoparticles were synthesized through the sol–gel method, and their characterization was performed via N2 physisorption at −196 °C, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), dynamic light scattering (DLS) measurements, and NH3 temperature-programmed desorption (TPD). The size of the synthesized nanoparticles ranged from 11 to 240 nm. The ability of the nanoparticles to adsorb asphaltenes and to reduce asphaltene self-association was evaluated using batch-mode experiments. The kinetics of asphaltene aggregate growth in the presence and absence of nanoparticles were evaluated using DLS measurements in different Heptol solutions. The smallest nanoparticles (11 nm) had the highest adsorptive capacity for n-C7 asphaltenes among the nanoparticles studied. Therefore, these nanoparticles were modified using acid, base, and neutral treatments, which showed the following order S11A ≫ S11B ≃ S11N ≃ S11 according to the n-C7 asphaltene affinity and the reduction of its mean aggregate size in the bulk phase. The surface acidity values obtained through of temperature-programmed desorption test ranged from 1.07 and 1.32 mmol/g. In general, the asphaltene self-association was reduced to a higher degree as the amount of adsorbed asphaltene increased. Additionally, in this study, the performance of a nanofluid treatment was tested under flow conditions in porous media under typical reservoir conditions using the nanoparticles with the best performance in batch-mode experiments. Indeed, nanofluid treatment with silica nanoparticles increased the effective permeability to oil and enhanced the oil recovery with an increase in the recovery factor of 11% under the conditions reported here. This approach has the major benefit of being scalable to a producing field, and the study provides an understanding of the roles of size and surface acidity of silica nanoparticles in the wettability alteration and inhibition of formation damage caused by asphaltenes and their influences on asphaltene aggregate size in the oil matrix and the adsorbed phases.
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represent the largest group of bacterial pathogens in humans and are responsible for severe, deep-seated infections, often resulting in sepsis or death. They are also a prominent cause of ...multidrug-resistant (MDR) infections, and some species are recognized as biothreat pathogens. Tools for noninvasive, whole-body analysis that can localize a pathogen with specificity are needed, but no such technology currently exists. We previously demonstrated that positron emission tomography (PET) with 2-deoxy-2-
Ffluoro-d-sorbitol (
F-FDS) can selectively detect
infections in murine models. Here, we demonstrate that uptake of
F-FDS by bacteria occurs via a metabolically conserved sorbitol-specific pathway with rapid in vitro
F-FDS uptake noted in clinical strains, including MDR isolates. Whole-body
F-FDS PET/computerized tomography (CT) in 26 prospectively enrolled patients with either microbiologically confirmed
infection or other pathologies demonstrated that
F-FDS PET/CT was safe, could rapidly detect and localize
infections due to drug-susceptible or MDR strains, and differentiated them from sterile inflammation or cancerous lesions. Repeat imaging in the same patients monitored antibiotic efficacy with decreases in PET signal correlating with clinical improvement. To facilitate the use of
F-FDS, we developed a self-contained, solid-phase cartridge to rapidly (<10 min) formulate ready-to-use
F-FDS from commercially available 2-deoxy-2-
Ffluoro-d-glucose (
F-FDG) at room temperature. In a hamster model,
F-FDS PET/CT also differentiated severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pneumonia from secondary
pneumonia-a leading cause of complications in hospitalized patients with COVID-19. These data support
F-FDS as an innovative and readily available, pathogen-specific PET technology with clinical applications.
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